By Sera Beak on September 29, 2009
Today, when I walked my dog through one of my favorite parks in SF, I came across a man standing still on the path, looking up at a tree in total awe, a soft smile playing across his face. As I respectfully approached him I realized I was witnessing a man witnessing something truly awesome. The moment felt holy, hushed, magical. When my dog barked, the shaman-like man turned to me and exclaimed:
“Can you believe how incredible this tree is? How it twists and turns? The bark? Just look at it. Beautiful, beautiful. I talk to this tree. I love this tree. I am in love with this tree. I moved to an apartment a few blocks away so I could be closer to this tree, to all the trees in this park.”
I smiled widely and nodded. He looked me in the eyes, smiled, and walked past me a few feet till his eyes caught the next glorious branch of another exquisite tree and he stopped and gasped and fell In Love, again.
As sentimental as this might sound, I felt blessed for having seen him. Reminded. Walking through this park daily I almost always admire its beauty, but this man reminded me to do more – to go ahead and open my spiritual thighs to this park, to allow myself to fall in passionate love with the trees, the birds, the pine cones and even the dog poop and random cruddy human litter.
Last summer when I was teaching a Redvolution workshop at Omega, I was asked to try and describe something that happens when you start turning red (“turning red” means creating a more radically intimate and daringly expressive relationship with that which you define as the divine – the divine inside of you and outside of you). My somewhat wacky response was:
“Some people, when they walk by a beautiful tree, they don’t even notice it. Some people walk by a beautiful tree and nod in appreciation. Some people walk by a beautiful tree and stop to hug it compassionately (what people would normally refer to as ‘tree huggers’ and ‘green’ peeps). A red one, who is feeling plugged-in that day, will walk by a tree and not just nod or hug, but, well, hump it… passionately. That’s right, Redvolutionaries are ‘tree humpers’” (I’ve already designed the t-shirts).
When you allow yourself to turn red (not to be confused with the past election) you can’t help but want to make crazy wild naughty love to All of Existence because at some point, no matter how brief, you’ve been smooched by mother nature. You’ve been spread open by the stars. You’ve been tickled, teased, and turned on by every atom in the Universe and all you can think about doing is returning the favor. Again and again and again.
Now, obviously we red ones are not dripping in this pumpin’ red-hearted state every minute, but this direct infusion of organic cosmic love juice is our raison d’etre, and we continuously look for ways we can allow it to fuel our days, our sweaty nights, our over all consciousness, and the planet.
In case you may be thinking right about now that this all sounds somewhat sexy and nice, but also like an inebriating distraction from reality and the troubles of the world, and by the way won’t it scare the children? Let me say that this sort of seduction of and from the Sacred is incredibly, remarkably, deliciously healing for the planet (and for the children who get to grow up in a love-saturated world). I mean really, what could be more important, especially at this chaotic yet hopeful time, than to “make love” as much as possible with as many things, people, places as possible? I’m talking energetic love here folks, but conscious, passionate, physical touch is always powerful when done with respect, mutual agreement, and authenticity. So, we Red Ones have jacked up “spiritual activism” to “ecstatic activism”. Naturally.
And, when times feel heavy, we look for creative ways to lighten ourselves up, to turn ourselves On, to make the Universe clap and beg for an encore. Sound intriguing? Here are but a few simple red suggestions to rev up your internal ecstatic engines…
1. Find a trampoline. Jump on it. Each time you’re in the air make the craziest, silliest moves you can. Have a friend take photos. Post them on Facebook. Red tutus are optional. So are clothes.
2. Read a Tom Robbins novel (Skinny Legs and All or Jitterbug Perfume are two of my faves). Another total promoter of giddy swoons is Rob Breszny’s Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings.
3. Gather a group of friends together at a private place, preferably a park or beach or open field, (not too near public eyes or ears) and all at the same time, scream your heads off!
4. Make red pom poms! Carry them around in your purse, briefcase, grocery cart, or in the backseat of your car. When you witness or feel anything that needs a little or a lotta divine cheer, bring em out and shake those blues busters with all your superpower and might while cheering something like: “wooo hooo – Hell Yeah! RRRRRed Delicious! Show Me Some Sexy Spirit! Go team Go! Love Wins Again, Babeeee!”
A few recommendations for where/when to shake your red poms:
ATM lines, stop lights, traffic jams, yoga classes, your cubicle, your bed, super serious spiritual retreats, when you are arguing with a loved one or your boss, when you see someone recycle or pet a dog or participate in some random act of kindness, when you look in the mirror, when you wake up every morning, when you remember who you are.
5. Buy a new sex toy (hey, Oprah recently recommended them) and use it!
6. Have a dinner party where conversation can only be about the positive – “Cutting back on my spending has made me: learn to cook like Martha Stewart after a few glasses of champagne and some really good sex; create some awesome free adventures on my weekends simply by paying homage to that dramatic feisty beauty queen known as mother nature; learn non-violent communication techniques to deepen my intimate relationships, paint a stunning new mural on my living room wall…with red lipstick!”
7. Whenever, wherever, and with whoever you sense fear, close your eyes, breathe deeply into your heart, exhale some authentic prayers, and then imagine a million tiny drunk giddy angels dirty dancing with your cells.
8. Turn off the news
9. Tune in to your divine spark
As Rob Breszny says in Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower Your With Blessings:
“In the new world we’re gestating, we need to be suffused with lusty compassion and ecstatic duty, ingenious love and insurrectionary beauty. We’ve got to be teeming with radical curiosity and reverent pranks, voracious listening and ferocious thanks.
We will ignore the cult of gloom and doom and embrace the cause of zoom and boom. We will laugh at the stupidity of evil and hate, and summon the brilliance to praise and create. No matter how upside-down it all may temporarily appear, we will have no fear, because we know this secret: Life is crazily in love with us – wildly and innocently in love with us…”
And all it takes is the willingness to make a tree blush.
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By Sera Beak on July 29, 2009
A few nights ago I had one of those A-HA dreams. The message is a wee bit typical, but the experience was quite inspiring. Here it is:
My landlord moved me to a new apartment building outside of San Francisco, on a remote forlorn beach. It was a strange building, to say the least, filled with dark passageways and heavy unlocked doors, odd shaped rooms with hooks coming out of the walls, and concrete…lots of concrete, to protect it from the elements (being on the open beach and all).
I felt unsettled as I often do in new places and wondered if I should stay there or not. So, I walked up some stairs to talk with my “upstairs neighbor” and asked her what she thought of our strange new digs. She informed me that this was the building where they used to keep vampires and all those weird hooks coming out of the walls were where they used to hang the vampire bodies.
How lovely. Nate Berkus would faint.
So, I’m pleased to say my dream self reacted the same way my “real” self would initially react upon hearing such words, with a: “Holy Shit!!! I am SO out of here!!!” But my friend “from above” grabbed my arm and said, “please don’t go, you can’t go”. I broke away from her and ran downstairs to grab my stuff and high tail it back to the SF I knew and loved – that Garden of Eden filled with green parks, cute cafes, beautiful alive people, organic food, friendly dogs, and even friendlier sex toy stores.
As I was frantically packing, a vampire came up behind me to have his bloody way with me and I instinctively turned and smashed his vampy ass to bits.
I suddenly, immediately, completely “remembered” that I was a vampire slayer! With that awareness more vamps lunged out of the passageways so I started kicking some major vampire booty.
By the way, I feel I must add that these were not the sexy, tormented-soul, human-friendly hottie vampires with a conscience from say, Twilight, or an Ann Rice novel or HBO’s True Blood or Buffy. This dream was not about being all “love and light” and Dalai Lamaish. Not that there’s anything wrong with being all peaceful and compassionately chill, it’s just not the message I needed to receive on this particular night and at this particular point in my life. In my experience, the Universe loves to teach personal lessons through dream time, and It also communicates in many different languages – my new personal fave: Whoop Ass. But I digress. Back to my dream.
When I was done sending these baddies to dust heaven, I thought to my dream self, “Who am I kidding, this is EXACTLY where I should be living, this is exactly where a vampire slayer should be perched. How perfect.”
So, the basic message of my vamp dream (it isn’t just that I’m crushing on Joss Whedon’s old T.V. show), is that even though times are downright freaky right now – what with the economy nose diving and swine flu swirling and the environment rightfully lashing out, not to mention our own personal fears we are up against every day in our careers, relationships, and bodies…..
We were made for this.
That’s right, in my red universe, we are all spiritual superheroes and this is exactly where we should be right now. Each and every one of us have unique, but latent superpowers that can only be realized, only be experienced and lived and shared if we are pushed to our edges…if we are sometimes forcibly moved out of our comfort zones and into the strange, the unfamiliar, the concrete bloody fear.
Take a look around your life. What “vampires” are lurking in your shadows – those relationships, jobs, foods, newscasts, unhealthy habits, TV shows, fears that are literally and metaphorically “sucking the life” out of you? Draining you of your soul’s purpose. Scaring you…to death. Make a list. Check it twice. Definitely find out who’s been naughty or nice, and then do something about it. Take healthy appropriate action (say “no” more often, create a “completion” ritual, redraw your personal boundaries, turn off the nightly news for one night a week, learn Aikido or to meditate or a new breathing technique). Reclaim your space, your body, your mind, your life. Fact is, we can’t shake this world awake if we run away, avoid, or ignore the vamps hiding out in our own corners.
We have been warriors in waiting for far too long. It’s time to roll up our sleeves, pull up our superheroine boots (by the way, I recently bought some crazy sexy bright red platform boots, which I wear around my house now whenever I need some extra power and whoop ass might. It’s my own type of “walking meditation.” Buddha, eat your heart out. I highly suggest you find some of your own power shoes to strut around in whenever you need an extra special divine spark in your step. Seriously. It can change your entire perspective), stretch our red hearts open even wider, and get down and dirty and thus divine with the best and worst of life… knowing eventually, ultimately, that there is no real difference between the best and the worst.
So superheroes and heroines, I can hear your inner timers ringing from way out here on my dreamy beach. Time’s Up. Come out, come out where ever you are and come in, come in to who you truly are. We need you. You have a planet to save, a universe to serve, and some super fine new footwear to wear.
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By Sera Beak on April 28, 2009
I’m Sera Beak, a Harvard-trained scholar of comparative religion and mysticism who’s spent the last dozen years traveling the world exploring spirituality — from whirling with Sufi dervishes to meeting the Dalai Lama on my 21st birthday; from taking the host from a Croatian Catholic mystic who had the stigmata (truly) to having life-altering visions with a shaman, and just about everything in between (I now happily deem myself a “spiritual cowgirl”).
I’m also the author of The Red Book: A Deliciously Unorthodox Approach to Igniting Your Divine Spark, co-director of the feature documentary film, Redvolution: Dare to Disturb the Universe, and a Redvolutionary.
A Redvolutionary is someone who does not play by the social, religious, cultural, sexual, or political rules. She affects change by daring to be herself, forging a unique path, and serving her planet authentically. She is a kind of “Spiritual Superheroine,” rebelling against dogma and ideology in order to experience a direct and intimate relationship with the divine. She has a fearless commitment to truth and freedom, sex toys, red wine, and gold body glitter…for all”
Now, I fully recognize that the word “spiritual” might make some of you want to run for the hills with a good bottle of tequila and The Portable Nietchze. If you’re like me or if you were born in or around my generation (you are now in your twenties or thirties) you may be, well, a little damn jaded about spirituality. It’s just such a loaded topic and is way too close a cousin to traditional religion (which is an even more overloaded and confusing subject).
Or.
Some of you might be neck deep in the spiritual swirl and are yoga-loving meditation humming “love and light” peeps workshopped well within the diverse spiritual arena of modern America. Or you might be simply and happily devoted to one particular tradition or practice. To all you plugged-in folks I just want to say – nope, you’re not at the wrong site.
Because no matter how “spiritual” you might think you are or are not, this I can bet on – you want to grow. Yep, there is a deep desire innate to the human species (and any species come to think of it) to evolve, to grow, to become more intimate with this thing called life. To heal. To spread one’s reach. To shed more layers. To lose more illusions. To increase the voltage of your light. In fact, one of my favorite spiritual mottos is this:
There is always more.
No matter where you fall on the spiritual spectrum, it’s time to create a more meaningful approach to spirituality. Your own. Because, the bottom line is:
You’re worth getting to know.
And we’re running out of time. No, this is not some doom and gloom “Left Behind” apocalypse reference meant to scare the thong off you, it’s more a polite yet firm “get off your ass now already and live like you mean it” suggestion.
Look, the universe needs you to be brave, to break out of your rigid molds, to shave the stale crusts off your life and begin to wake up to your true self, through the means that resonate most to you. These means may look stereotypically “spiritual” or they may not. They may look like mine, or your teacher’s or your best friend’s, but they probably will not. Who cares. Be yourself.
Boldly.
How? Become your favorite subject. Pay attention. Become aware of how you’re choosing to live your life. Of what things, people, beliefs, and practices promote authentic heart booming mind-honing power, and what stuff in your life weighs you down, covers your light, and sucks your soul juice dry. It’s time to boogie down your unique path responsibly, with eyes wide open and heart turned on, so you can start sharing your unique process (the highs and the “what the effing?” lows) with the rest of us.
Cause when you breathe deeper into your wowness, I get to breathe deeper into mine (as does that woman in Iraq and that man in India and that slobbery dog in Boisie Idaho). That’s right, when you start claiming your power, it energetically helps me claim mine. When you begin to get, at a cell-tingling level that you truly are divine (however you experience the divine – energy, nature, life, Love, You, God/dess, Buddha nature, the Wiggling Wow)– you start to really make a difference in this thing called Life and can serve this plant in authentic and seriously effective ways.
That’s right, like it or not, aware of it or not, you have a responsibility to be all you can Be to the best of your ability right here and right now so this planet has a chance to shine the way it was intended. By being your self loudly you also make the angels swoon and the gods do grande jetes and the whales sigh in relief. Dive Deep. Land within. Give the universe a reason to sit up and party and every “holy” person a reason to get crazy and sexy.
DARE YOURSELF TO DISTURB THE UNIVERSE. Like now already.
Ok then, let’s rock and let this blog roll….
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