Studio flow and thoughts on letting go...

Sometimes in the middle of a winter that refuses to be winter you just have to switch things up a bit and seek out inspiration in new places. Recently, I've been actively exploring music again, playing different things while I yoga/dance/improv/roll about, and subsequently, I’ve been nerding out on some Tokimonsta. I am loving the different directions her music takes me during practice. (This video isn't the best example, but it's what I've got...)

I’ve noticed it’s satisfying to experience music, and art in general, that seems to result from years of deliberate practice, but inspires when it carries an authenticity arising from a process of adversity, letting go, vulnerability, and beginning again.

Here’s what I’m talking about, a bit of Tokimonsta's story- - https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-ca-ms-tokimonsta-20171012-story.html

Of course, eventually, each of us will be forced to let go of that which we hold dear: our accumulated stories of ourselves, our collection of artifacts and certificates, our friends and titles, our bodies and minds. Even knowing that inevitability, we often avoid living in ways that will make us better at navigating that process. It is in our moments of struggle and misery that we can dive into the practice of letting go of the things we think we are and thus must defend and justify. 

When we open our hearts at the very moments we most want to shut the world out, we act from a place of vulnerability. We let go of defending our positions, even subtle layers of what we should be and how we should act, and suddenly we just are --  in the simplicity of being-ness. Vulnerability arises from an authenticity that connects all of us. So the authenticity in us recognizes the authenticity in others and in that shared space we know we are not alone.

Art begins in our vulnerability and humanness, because the very act of being human is to embody our profoundly unique expression of the universe’s creative essence. We cannot exist as separate entities. We are products of the elemental and energetic world around us and those who were the elemental and energetic products of their world and proceeding people of their worlds. And yet, at the same time, there will never again exist our particular unique expression of the creative essence as it manifests through us. What a delicate dance of harmonious wholeness.

Understanding the art of that unique creative expression (each of us) happens when we *pause* and fully experience our aliveness. Aliveness in the experience before the mind labels or creates a story around the experience. Around us -- as an experience.

Each inhale-- as your first inhale. Each exhale -- as your last exhale. Each moment of presence, a letting go of who you were a moment ago and beginning again as nothing. Just being is an act of vulnerability, full with emptiness; we are never alone.

These are good thoughts for winter. Infact, I write all of this in a fairly down space. One of those fog-brain spaces where it is difficult to say what you mean and you wonder if there is a point in saying anything. But to the point of this post, I am stepping into the vulnerability and putting this out there because humanness is where I relate to others and remember that we are far bigger than the smallness we make ourselves out to be.