Cartoon 17: Sprouting Wings

On New Years I did a poorly planned meditation.  It was 11:30pm and what I most wanted was to take off everything that I wasn’t born with, wrap myself in a white blanket and sit down in silence to perceive the coming of the New Year as a rebirth.   A cleansing, a moment to honor that everything I need, I have.  I couldn’t seem to find a quiet spot so at the last minute, I cumbersomely climbed out onto the metal roof of my house, just me and my white blanket.

I reached the top of the roof and got all comfy for my meditation. Just before I closed them, my eyes stumbled upon the metal roof, sloping downward at a rather steep angle. Crap, I thought, How the f am I going to get down.  Images came to my mind of me loosing my balance and with it the blanket, sliding down the roof flailing, and landing in the driveway 15 feet down with no clothes on. Ha!  Climbing up was so much easier, I had my eyes on the prize and wasn’t paying attention to how high up I was going.  I giggled because this is exactly what I’m feeling like in my life right now.  I’m on the cliff of this big dream I constructed with my x and now I don’t have any idea how to get down.  That’s where my friend Jason comes in. I told him about my meditation experience and he said ‘Well maybe you’re not supposed to get down. Maybe you’re ‘sposed to sprout wings and fly off that mother!’

In the meditation, I managed to hunker down and let the worries go.  I decided that at that moment, getting down wasn’t important, this was the moment to just be with the world up there.  With my unfocused, soft gaze I was able to enjoy the fire works of all of the city.  Looking at nothing in particular allowed me to perceive it with all of my senses. The laughs and excitement of my neighbors, the sparklers of the kids across the street and the big blasts of the downtown fireworks show.  Eventually, I had to get down so I decided to let go of perfect blanket coverage and throw it over my back while I very very carefully scaled down the roof backward.  Luckily I made it safe and sound and no one was the wiser :)

In my life, I’m still on top of that roof. 

What I have is this moment.  The immediate past is too painful and the future completely unknown.  I am not victimizing myself either, I made every decision that lead me up to this point and I am happy to be here. 

Another thing I have is my people.  I was able to go home to spend the holidays with them in the middle of all this mess and I couldn’t believe their reaction to me.  When I felt like my world had completely fallen apart, their collective response was, “You’ve got this. You will be fine, we have confidence in you, you are strong and the world will take care of you ”.  They have a confidence in my decisions that I don’t even have in myself. What a gift.

Upon my return to Mexico while trying like crazy to live in the present and not worry about which direction my life would go, I was teaching an acroyoga class and a beautiful Brazilian gal walked in.  We hit it off well and as we talked we figured out that she is the best friend of the aerial director of America Latina Cooperativa (Option 3 from the last cartoon)!  After hearing my situation, she immediately sent an email to her best friend Julia, the aerial director, and Bam! New collective, new life…

For the next three months, I will be traveling with America Latina Cooperativa (http://www.alcoop.org/?lang=en ), a group of 9 people from Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico and the US.  We are geographers, sociologists, social workers, educators, photographers, filmmakers and artists and here´s the plan:

¨Based on documented research, artistic, educational and audiovisual production activities, we intend to strengthen networking among social movements, to present their work, locate points of influence and action through mapping, with the purpose of consolidating its presence in our America.¨ (thats a pretty big definition so if your interested in more info look at the website mentioned above)

   We will be posting video updates along the way so I’ll have lots to share :)

So this cartoon is dedicated to my peoples.  Without your confidence in me, I would not have been able to bounce back emotionally to be able to enjoy the moments that the world has put in front of me. 

P.S.

Here’s the first video spot :

http://www.facebook.com/sartonk?ref=notif&notif_t=fbpage_fan_invite&sk=wall#!/photo.php?v=10150653008456528&set=vb.309052422450755&type=2&theater