20070903: Warm Summer Rain

Last month when Hunter and I had a gig out in Discovery Bay (see entry for "Fire Dancers Stuck in the fire") and were enjoying the warm summer evening air, we got to talking with Audree (who was our safety for the night) about how our experience on the east coast was so different weather wise. In San Francisco, you rarely experience a warm summer night because the warm air from the Central Valley in the day time sucks the cool air in off the Pacific Ocean, creating the fog which leads to the ever famous expression about "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" or something about that.

At the time, I said I missed standing in warm summer rains and enjoying being able to get wet and not be cold and feel refreshed. Well... I feel complete with that at this point!

As Spencer and I darted off to catch the train and try to meet his friend (ag! We were late!) at OCAT in Osaka, it started to drizzel. Riding the bikes down the back streets on the way to the urban parts of Kyoto so we could catch the train to Umeda, I found myself smiling and enjoying the rain as it cooled me off. The night was hot an dmuggy and the rain was welcome,
especially in the breeze of the bike.

Arriving in Osaka, it was still drizzling. No problem... It felt good.

Soon enough, however, we were experiencing a full on rain. I'm not talking about one of those weak-willed-can't-assert itself sort of San Francisco rains. I'm talking the kind of rain that got your shoes so wet your feet were soaked and the shoes made sloshing sounds as you walked. So wet, I thought, "Wow, I'd be concerned this was a hurricane or something if it were even a little windy." So wet, as I walked behind Spencer, I noticed his jeans were wet almost all the way up to his knees.

I've got my fill of warm summer rains, for now. ;)

20070903: Having a (Silver) Ball

OCAT -- Osaka City Air Terminal -- is a Penn Station sort of place. All manner of public transit converge there and
there's shops and places to grab food along the way.

Outside is a pretty awesome and beautiful metal sculpture. It's a few arches, sort of symmetrically laid out that rise over a story high representing the path of a bouncing ball with a silver ball on the ground in between them. The silver ball is probably over 3 feet high.

We were going to meet Emily here but due to my slowness, we were late - sorry Emily!!! :( But, when we got there a group of maybe 25 urban dancers -- break dancing, pop and lock and vogue style -- the sort of thing you might see in "Step Up" or possibly "Rize" -- were hanging out practicing. Wow. What a site.

I saw some amazing artistry there, including one guy who did a 360 turn (in the air) starting from his hands, pushed up into the air (fully leaving the ground) from one hand, turning in the air and landing on the other hand to complete the turn. Think
Mitch Gaylord meeting the best break beat dancer you've seen -- gymnastic dance. AWESOME!

Thanks to Spencer, I found myself super inspired and, after seeing a rather large roach on the ground and thinking, "hmm, wonder how many thousands are under ground..." I got to work and did a dance of my own. Ah, how I love playing with my 2 balls and string. . .

20070903: Arashiyama

One of the reasons Spencer choose to move to Kyoto when he went to Japan was for the way in which that city represents the history of Japan. Another reason is the natural splendor of the area, represented with awes inspiring beauty in Arashiyama. Bike riding for the first time in at least 2 years (I don't seem to do it much except at Burning Man), we trekked out to the little town pretty late in the afternoon, getting there when the shops were closing.

Not to worry, we arrived at the Togetsukyo Bridge and ... Wow. Breathtaking. The beauty of the small waterfall, the serenity, the sense of the amazing ancient feeling of it. The greenery. Set at the base of a large mountain range in a valley, I found myself overjoyed to witness the beauty of it... To the point of tears.

The whole area was amazing, well kept and quite beautiful. Even the train station was done up with an amazing entry way, lovely water tanks and bamboo everywhere. It was a little haven inside, beautiful as it was, and simply a train station!

We walked along the water to discover a festival the night before we'd seen an ad for. Of course, festival maybe is a bit of an overstatement. It seemed a bit more like a ritual of some sort. There were boats on the water with 2 men, a woman and a small group of what appeared to be ducks or geese. The ducks were on some sort of leash in front of the boat and over the ducks were these burning baskets of wood... Embers shooting out toward the ducks.

On the water were 4 boats full of people watching the "event." Later, as the boats with the fire pots pulled away, I saw the ducks sitting on the boat near the woman. Fascinating experience, really.

And one of my favorite things to do this afternoon was shoot a photo of one of Audree's bags made by dutchy with the tag on and everything. This photo of spencer and this beautiful and spacious Rose Clutch combination wallet and clutch -- big enough even to fit my phone as well as money, oversized business cards, pen, id and more receipts than one person should be carrying -- was taken out side the really beautiful train station.

20070903: Sushi

Oh my did we have a good lunch. For less than $20, we ate copious amounts of really good sushi for lunch. This was my first really good meal since I arrived and I was grateful to be enjoying it. Where did the food come from? Yup, the grocery store. Coo, eh?

20070902: Kyoto by night

Spencer's such an excellent tour guide! He gives amazing instructions, clear information and along with it, cultural tidbits to make the stay so pleasant you'd think you had your own personal tour guide. Oh, wait, he was that. ;)

He took me on the street car into Saiin where we went to a restaurant that had what seemed a lot like Japanese tapas for dinner. Interesting experience. You take off your shoes -- it's cleaner they think (or at least that's what I've gathered) and then if you want to go to the bathroom you put on these slippers that other people have used before you. How is that more sanitary?

Anyway, after dinner, we took the subway into the central part of Kyotot and went to a main strip near some night clubs. I saw this guy who had the coolest haircut I have seen in a long time. He had some asymmetric carvings in the hair in the right and back of his head. At first when I commented to him, he sort of just gave me this blasé look like an American might go, "been there done that." Then he did a double take and he and all his friends looks at me and said, "Coo" -- dropped "L" and all -- while they gave me the thumbs up.

We walked down the street and found a bridge over water where we shared a clove cigarette. And then I just had to bust out and do a dance. Lighting up the oggs drew a small crowd of mostly young (20 ish?) men. They stopped and chatted with Spencer while I danced. He started telling them I was his Sensei and that I was famous, so I got asked for my autograph by one of them who took a great picture of me, a copy of which I wish I could have gotten. Fun, silly times, to be sure.

We headed back, seeing the guy with the carved hair again -- this time he was all smiles and stares, thumbs up and more "Coo" as we walked by.

In keeping with the rest of the night, we barely made the last train, then barely made the last street car on the way home -- here I was on vacation being rushed around. But I was grateful we got on the last train because that would have been a long walk home and I had not gotten nearly enough sleep for that!

20070901: I'm in the State of Confusion

I can't quite recall when the last time I got sleep was. I think it was Wednesday night for about 5 hours, waking at 11 am on Thursday. Sean and I were up all night that night and then I got on the plane on Friday the 31st.
At that point, I had a nap, the deepest sleep I'd had in days, for about 90 minutes. Then my neck hurt and I couldn't sleep.

When I landed in Japan is was almost 4 pm the next day, even though it was only about 11 hours later. Passing the international date line -- what a trip! So there I was, up for the better part of 31 hours landing in Japan with more luggage than one person should have. Of course, 1/3 of my rolling cart was poi gear, and most of the rest was costumes -- I mean, how could I go to Japan and not be decked out GlitterGirl style? :)

Slowly making my way through the airport, I found my way to meet up with my good friend, teacher, student and an amazing being in his own right, Spencer, who lives in Japan teaching English while he's studying Aikido. Very East meets West sort of being who inspires me in his journey of self evolution.

I realized though, after my first poi dance at Uzumasa station: I had left the state of California and found myself in the state of confusion... Nearly half way around the world.

20070831: Fly like an Eagle...

On the plane, I got up, stretched, and feeling really tight, had these two women commenting to me about how amazing the stretch was -- I figure they weren't from California and didn't do yoga. ;)

Feeling like I was on a vision quest on the plane and consciously going into this journey to Japan with the idea that I'd shed the weights of my past -- habits, self images, self deceptions, mis conceptions, lack of faith, lack of self belief -- I know I was exuding something different. This lovely flight attendant commented to me about it saying there was something very electric about me. At another time, I might have thought it was just my hair or fabulous new coat. But this time I knew it was a difference in the way I was Being, carrying myself and owning what I have done in this world and even more, what I am capable of still accomplishing.

August 31, 2007: Unveiling the site!

While it is still under construction, we can finally say the PoiGeek web site is live... mostly. yeah! the final frontier before leaving for Japan later today. :)

August 27: PoiGeek Announces Plans

PoiGeek announced on August 27, 2007 their plan to launch the alpha release of PoiGeek.com in early October, 2007. PoiGeek is the first poi education web site offering structured lessons available in 4 digital formats: Portable device – perfect for your iPod, web streaming, high definition and even DVD options. The alpha release of the site will feature 4 “courses” – a collection of 10 interrelated lessons – created by PoiGeek co-founder and Temple of Poi founder, Isa GlitterGirl Isaacs.

“We’ll present these 4 modules to whet people’s appetite and give them a taste of what is to come,” said Isa’s partner, Sean Gies. Sean partnered with Isa after investing time in his own poi practice while working his day job at Apple working on software for the newly released iPhone product.

PoiGeek plans to launch it’s alpha version with a sparse 4 modules totaling only 40 moves in October. By the January beta launch the site will have grown to 10 modules with an anticipated 15+ modules by their official unveiling in the first quarter of 2008. In addition, PoiGeek is inviting instructors world wide to also host their courses on the site.

“We’re creating a forum for education to flow from any one to anywhere with a consistent commitment to quality of both presentation and content. At the same time, we’re encouraging students to invest in their education at easily affordable tuition rates,” said Isa, referring to PoiGeek’s pricing structure where lessons are available for as little as $1 each.

Teaser Video for Poi Course: The Snail Turn Around

And if you want a shorter version, here you go! :)

Trailer Video for Poi Course: The Snail Turn Around

Check out this trailer for the Snail Course, available this fall on PoiGeek.

August 23, 2007: Our first PoiGeek video

Sean and I have been busting ass to get a demo for the upcoming Japan trip. It's been challenging -- one unexpected challenge after another. We finally have our first of many videos to come available on YouTube as a promo piece which will be included in the promo materials for the JFF folks. Exciting!!!! :)

August 17: 4 Things You Can Not Recover

August 16: the thick of things...

It sucks to be in the muck of it all sometimes. Except that the real gifts in life seem to come from stepping through that space and finding a deeper, richer, better part of ourselves in the process.

August 15, 2007: human accomplishment...

Most human accomplishment is not the result of decisive actions or moments of truth. No, persistence -- even, simple-minded persistence -- is the source of the best of what we do, of real change.
~ Paul Chadwick ~

August 14, 2007: Rumi

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
- Rumi

August 6, 2007: You done good, Ma!

You done good Ma. I’m changing the world, if only on a “small” scale right now (over 1030 students so far and growing). I have done the thing you and dad advised against — when I was young I wanted to be both an engineer and a teacher and unintentionally, I have become both. I combined that with self expression, artistry and meditation as well as entrepreneurialship and voila — here I am 5 years later, world renown, running the premier poi fire/flow dancing school that has been around the longest and, to the best of my knowledge, the only full time one around in the world today.

You undeniably made me who I am — in all the ways you encouraged and discouraged me. All the ways I fought you taught me; all the ways I listened to you taught me as well.

I feel grateful that you’re my Mother. You’re an amazing woman who is a ground breaking individual in her own right. I hope you know that is how I hold you in the world. You often inspire me.

I hope when you think of me you’re not too embarrassed by how weird/unusual I am. When I tell you that it is a gift in more people’s lives than you could count, I mean it. I have countless stories of how the mindset of and the school has changed people’s lives (have you ever read the Flowology Mindset?). One of my favorites is about how one of my students walked into her synchronized swim team meeting and one of her teammates who didn’t know about the Temple from her found the mindset on line and printed it out, asking the coach of the team to use it as a guideline for how they all played together. How cool is that to be putting it out on the internet and have some random person ask another person to use it as the official team philosophy?

I guess my point in all of this is that as I’ve written my will, I’ve reflected on all the times where we have not always seen eye to eye. Despite it all and in many ways because of it, I am who I am and where I am. Your clear and undeniable contribution to me being who I am spreads through the world as my work avails itself to more and more clients each day.

So I thank you for the gift it has been for me both in my own life and in the way I get to share it with other’s in their lives.

I imagine in the great ether of the universe we (the soul) may choose the parents whose lives we come into. I wonder why I choose (if in fact that happened) you and Dad sometimes — I often feel like my relationship with the family makes no sense.

But when I look at it through the eyes of the clarity of my work ethic, commitment to excellence, strength of will, leadership capabilities, brilliant mind, cognitive development, reasoning skills and the profound sense that it doesn’t matter what stands in my way I will make it happen, I’m clear much of that in me is a result of who and how you and Dad have been in my life.

So thanks. Which seems like such a small thing to say in response to all you’ve given to me. But sometimes appreciation, even this small, means something. And I wanted you to have that since hey, one never knows when the end will come.

Love love love!
The daughter (formerly known as) Lisa. :)

August 6: What is love?

I find this line of inquiry interesting. In my own experience for my world of “romance,” I question what the difference is between friends who have sex and romance. Romance seems like a consciously (at least where I'm coming from today) created game people play with each other in an effort to woo the other person... Wooing them for what is where the game lies I think. Don’t we do that with friends though, just to a lesser degree?

For me intimate relating comes down to love. Interestingly enough, I generally walk through the world and feel love for everyone. I modeled this out when I was 15 or so, though there are some updates as I write it now. I’ve thought of love as degrees of experience of love — from least to most:

hate (loving the life in a way such that one is closed to them, often from fear, disappointment, judgment, disapproval, disdain for their actions)

universal love (love of life and all things that are alive)

acquaintance love (those you’ve met and have more connection with than someone you haven’t)

familial/obligatory love (“those you should love”) which is not always to say that they are loved at that level — can be loved at a higher or lower level

student/teacher love – love of the dynamic that creates learning between you and another as you learn (as both student and teacher) and grow from the experience

friendship love — this has infinite gradients, really. I described it then as this thing where if you have a set of criteria in X domains (ways you value a person showing up be it in common values, hobbies, skills, ways of being, approach to the world and whatever else), a friend is someone who meets Y percent overall of your criteria (back then for me it was 80%); good friend meets Y+some %; best friend meets good friend + some %; etc.

kindred spirit love – is a new one for me over recent years and is what I think at 15 I felt was romantic love, so i’m replacing that spot in the model with a different name for it. For me, it is this place where we meet people who reflect us in ways such that we feel met at a level that almost feels “destined” -- and in a sense, touches into the unknown and indescribable sense of the mystery of love. I have experienced this in the context of “soul contracts” with another — a sense that our souls met in the great Kosmic nothingness and we made a contract to partner in these bodies in this life on this earth. This love, I have noticed, has us make non-rational choices because the draw of the “soul contract” trumps rationality which, for me, explains the completely non-rational aspects of looking in someone’s eyes and just falling into love with them. I think when this happens, there is a soul contract there.

At the time, I thought of “in love with” as the pinnacle of it all. In the last 5-7 years I evolved that thinking into the endless opening to the person, again and again, for who they are, as they are. Even if you “fall out of love,” which you can can do when you are closing, you can also “fall back in love with them” and this can vary moment to moment throughout the day/week/month/year/lifetime of the relationship. The depth of “in love” is about ones willingness to surrender into the truth of the being and i’ve noticed that even if I thought I was “as in love with someone as I could be,” as my capacities and self awareness increase, so does my ability to be more in love with someone.

Also, I could be in love with the man on the street I don’t know by accepting him fully as he is and allowing myself to be open to him even if I have no desire to draw him into a “higher” level of love. I dare say though the closer to kindred spirit love one experiences another, the more likely one is to be in love with them because the nature of being met (at least as I have experienced it in the world) has beings open to Other.

This was probably the first model I ever distinguished, now that I think about it. And I realize now that it is holonic in nature in my experience.

I also realize my experience of love is whacked by most people’s standards. This model explains why polyamory (and in a sense, polysexuality) have been so easy for me to embrace in my life -- I think because I can literally walk through my life being “in love” with everyone. This is a confusing experience to have when so many people reserve that term and limit who they will be in love with when in my world, I am most healthy when I feel in love with all things because I operate at a different vibration in the world. For me, this is the altered state of flow and when I access that space, I know only openness and love and I am at my best.

Anyone I call a good friend I have had at least one moment of being in love with them. And for me, if I’ve been in love with someone, I would consider being sexually involved with them — why wouldn’t I want to share that level of intimacy with them as well as all the others? Hence the boundary-less-ness of my (bi or should I say Try)sexuality because my sexual attraction to a being is directly derived from my love for them which is immediately informed by my openness to them in combination with the overlaps described in the model above. I notice that I see people’s spirit when I look at them (which is also what I see when I look in the mirror) so people’s physical form doesn’t really impact my sexual attraction. There is, often, a high correlations between someone’s own love of themselves and health and how they look physically, but it is incidental to and not what draws me to people or to be attracted to them sexually.

Hence romance doesn’t make much sense to me as romance seems like a construct for limiting relating, seeing as it is often about singling out people to be romantic with, rather than expanding it. For me. Hence my confusion about interacting in that context with people. :D

August 4, 2007: fire dancers stuck in the fire

I was on my way to a gig and we got caught in a fire -- rather there was a fire and traffic was stopped and the road was closed. We had to turn around and go back. That was fun and interesting.

I've never seen a natural fire that big before. Beautiful experience. And really humbling too. It was clear the fire had traveled pretty far because we could see where the fire department had put out the fire and where it was still moving.

It was so big. Made The Man burning look small. Very small. Very pale.

July 30: On the Radio!

I love technology! I love that I can sit in my bed naked and be on a talk show with a woman who is 2500 miles away, perhaps even sitting in her own home and that anyone on the web can listen to it! How awesome is that?

archive here:
http://blogtalkradio.com/coachkradio