Spiritual Cowgirl

(Jennifer Posada and Velcrow Ripper)

I’m back in SF after attending the premier of Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action directed by Velcrow Ripper (the genius filmmaker I have the honor of co-directing Redvolution with) at the Vancouver Film festival. It was the only film at the festival that received a standing ovation. When you see this film (in theaters this Spring) your heart cannot help but beat back alive, your spirit cannot help but remember why it exists, and your eyes cannot help but spill oceans. It’s that great. It’s that needed. It’s that Fierce.

After the premier we did a Redvolution film shoot and we had the honor of interviewing two absolutely amazing redvolutionaries. The first was my favorite author of all time, Tom Robbins. If you have not read any of his books, well, shame on you. Or shame on whatever has happened in your life to cause you not to digest these profound hilarious dirty mystical heretical novels. I hereby deem Tom Robbins to be an official red “prescription” for times you might be feeling a bit too, well, white, or blue, or green, or even, gulp, pink. Start with Skinny Legs and All, next try Jitterbug Perfume, and then maybe Another Roadside Attraction and then Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.

Speaking of which, we got to see a play of ECGTB the night before we interviewed Tom. It was phenomenal and even had full frontal female nudity in it (Velcrow really likes the research for Redvolution so far…). After the performance, we interviewed the cowgirls backstage and asked them what the essence of a cowgirl was to them. They said lovely things like: “freedom, being your true self, becoming your own master, not following the rules, listening to your heart and riding life barebacked, naked, and hard”. Ride On!

OK, but Tom was amazing. He generously gave us a thorough tour of his quirky colorful beautiful home, appropriately named “Villa De Jungle Girl,” which is actually made up of a few different houses he has stitched together over 30 something years. The rooms are themed with alligators and jungle girls and bats and gorgeous old carnival canvases and a few priceless Warhols thrown in. My favorite piece he showed us was a glass case filled with every type of peach can ever created topped with a Buddha icon. I mean come ON, this man is genius. But, the most special of all rooms, for me, was his writing room. I saw the couch he sits on everyday when he’s handwriting a book on a legal pad…no computers for him. He nailed the interview and we have some priceless one liners that will for sure make Redvolution banned from Sarah Palin’s DVD player, such as “Christianity is like Cheese Wiz that expired in 400 C.E.”

Next we ferried it over to Orcas Island, one of the most magical islands I have ever been too. We planted ourselves for a few days in this lovely place in order to interview one of our spiritual superheroines, Jennifer Posada, who is a mystic and an oracle and an absolutely wise and beautiful soul. Meeting her was like meeting a soul sister and the interview and oracle session with her changed my life. I cannot wait for the audience to experience her gifts. I’m truly honored to have these spiritual superheroes in our film, they are all so extraordinary.

OK, so I’m back for a bit and will be feeding this blog more nourishing meals, with lots of desserts. Much love and happy riding.

Yesterday, filmmaker Velcrow Ripper and I had the honor of interviewing Joanna Macy – eco philosopher, scholar of Buddhism, deep ecology, and systems theory for Velcrow’s documentary film FierceLight (coming to theaters Fall 2008). Filming Joanna amidst fiery pink bouganvilla next to a beautiful stone icon of the Buddhist goddess Kwan Yin, we definitely felt Gaia’s breath. Joanna spoke with such elegance, simplicity and passion about our need to become active and reconnect with the planet, each other, and life.

Joanna began by describing how our civilization, the industrial growth society, is beginning to unravel - financially, environmentally, politically, psychologically. She said that most people are reacting to this destruction out of fear and obedience or by going numb, but she believes the spiritual challenge is to be present, to truly take in and see what is happening to our world, allow ourselves to open up and feel the pain, mourn the dishonor and destruction and loss, so we are then better able to take action based on the natural compassion that arises in us when we tap into our humanity and connection to the earth. She calls this time period, The Great Turning.

There are 3 Dimensions of The Great Turning:
1. Actions to slow down the destruction being wrought by industrial growth society. These actions are what we generally think of as “activism”. This is a call to protect life and to save as much as you can, but this alone, is not enough.
2. Planting the seeds for new structures after the old ones fall away, such as alternative fuel, alternative ways of growing and distributing food, alternative health, alternative currency. But, this is also not enough.
3. A revolutionary shift in consciousness is needed. A sense of awe, gratitude, wonder and devotion to this planet, life, and each other needs to arise from the heart.

Joanna told us there were 3 revolutions in human history:
1. Agricultural Revolution
2. Industrial Revolution
3. This one. While the first two did not require an immense amount of consciousness and had the luxury of time, this Third revolution must be conscious and is happening fast. (btw, the Redvolution is one of millions of current revolutions that support, point to, and illuminate this Third one. Wake up, turn red, and serve babee! Alright, back to the mystic ecologist.)

In this new consciousness, there is no room for fear or self-criticism. Joanna commented on how we’ve internalized the idea that we’re somehow lacking or not good enough, that we need to buy more, look better, work harder to compete with life. It’s a distraction and false. And yes, sometimes, when we do begin to wake up, we get so overwhelmed by the negative state of the world and how we’ve dishonored this planet and each other that we want to run back to Bloomingdales, our mac and cheese, and Desperate Housewives.

But Joanna says to just give up and feel powerless about the current planetary situation is an easy out and a form of self-pity and shows disrespect for the gift of life given to you. “If you have air to breathe, there’s something you can do. You’re not powerless - you’re sad, you’re appalled, you’re scared”. She also made an interesting point that our grieving and depression that we might think is our personal stuff, our own private unique craziness, is also coming from this awareness of what is happening to the oceans, the lands, the animals, the humans. When we can admit this, feel this, we are capable of seeing our responses as forms of compassion. And we realize that we’re not alone nor completely nutz.

Joanna reminds us that the power holders want us to feel alone and isolated and numb, but a pain-free life is a kind of death. Feeling brings us back to life and teaches us how to truly see each other and this planet again. Joanna cautions us not to act alone. We need to reach out to others. Get involved on our block, in our city, make sure we create or find community. After all, we’re relational beings. Then Joanna quoted the poem Rilke (oh yeah, along with changing the world and making a mean ice tea, she also translates Rilke poems)

“We come towards each other to meet and be met and to make each other real” - Rilke

Joanna truly believes that now is one of the greatest times to be alive. It’s exciting, challenging, and has the potential for utter greatness. There is a possibility that those 7 generations after us will call this time period something special, like “The Great Turning”, or “the time humans finally woke up, got off their asses, and started to act like the beings they really are already”. That would be my name for it…perhaps it would sound better as an acronym.

Joanna said the true meaning of apocalypse is not just disaster, but revelation disclosed. There is something being revealed now about life being lived and breathed through us. There are such great things life can do if we let it pour through us, with gratitude. In fact, she said gratitude is like oxygen. At one point during the interview Joanna uttered “I never thought it could get this bad, and I never thought it could be this good”. She asks us to dance the paradox – to see both the promise of a new tomorrow and the possibility of no tomorrow.

We need to give ourselves totally to the shift, without knowing how it will turn out. After all, if we knew all things were going to be fine and dandy with a cherry on top, we might not work so hard. If we knew things were just gonna blow, we’d probably give up and dive into a bottle of Gin. Giving ourselves totally without knowing is a fundamental “spiritual” way to live life. It’s this time, more than any other in history, that has the potential to break us open and into our authentic divine natures. If we choose to become conscious. If we choose to become free. And if we learn to have a good time doing so.

Tallyho!

Andrew Harvey - Cambridge Scholar, Rumi Translator, Divine Feminine Lover, Sacred Activist and a Deliciously Red modern day mystic. Sigh. He was probably my most favorite interviewee I experienced on the film shoot this summer.

OK, I’ll admit, I totally fell in love with Andrew – from his beautiful red icons of the divine feminine to his utter glee at seeing wild baby bunnies to his spontaneous recitation of Rumi poems to his joy in eating ice cream to his brilliant and grounded ideas of activism - this man is the real deal, and we should all pay attention to his fiery love song to the planet.

Andrew believes this planet is currently undergoing a dark night of the soul, but instead of this being a negative thing, we need to understand that “destruction is only creation in drag”. This birth canal-like phenomenon will eventually lead to rebirth, a quantum shift in reality, a total renewal of life as we know it - if we apply divine consciousness, love, and action.

If.

Who’s leading this seemingly dark, yet if we choose wisely, utterly transformative movement? Oh, that would be the Great She She of Us All. The Mama. The Big G with Breasts. According to Harvey, the return of the divine feminine is producing the best show in town, and guess who the stars are? Uh huh. And we need to start acting like it.

How? By getting mystic with it. By marrying the mystical passion for the divine to the active passion for justice. The enlightened mystic floating off to the cosmos is of no use to us anymore. We need to ground our mystical asses to the dirt, as well as lift our ego consciousness to the stars. We need to be “both and” - and then some. And as we all know, mysticism is not the same as religion. In fact, Harvey asks us to get out of the boxes of religion and create a direct relationship with the divine so we can “dive into the sea of burning honey”. After all, this is our birthright.

Hot Salty Honey Love? Sign me up!

Sound a little abstract?

Here’s the “oxygen” to get you sweetly burning. According to Harvey you need:

1. cool practices: practices that keep you calm and serene, like walking, deep breathing, meditation
2. warm practices: practices that open your heart and keeps it alive such as the mystical systems of metta or tonglen
3. sacred body practices. A) tantra, sacred sexuality B) tantra of tenderness to connect you to the planet and animals and interconnectedness C) yoga, reiki, sacred dance, and so on, so your body can be ready to handle tremendous amounts of divine energies. The physical body needs to be kept at a high level of empowerment or we’ll be too exhausted to help.

And all these practices need to be done with concentrated realism, divine practical intelligence, not airy fairy woo wooness.

And here are Harvey’s 5 paths of service:

1. service to the divine – gratitude, prayer, passion, meditation, so the divine can pour into you.
2. service to yourself as instrument of the divine – work on self, shadow work, physical work, deep meditation etc.
3. service to all sentient beings – treating everyone you meet as a manifestation of the divine, including animals.
4. service to your own local community – get involved with local politics, local environmental movements, local volunteer opportunities that excite you.
5. service to the world - become a global citizen and make clear choices: vote, invest in green healthy companies, live life with awareness and compassion.

Sound a little challenging? A little sticky? A little sweaty? A little red? I think we’re up to it. We have to be.

check out my radio interview that aired today on Virato Live.