Beet Root

I've been thinking a lot about input lately, not in the black, white, and grey ways, but in the vibrant color ways. There are times when lines need to be drawn----confidence in hard "no's" despite seasoned understanding----and then there are the flourishing times, when the input inspires, rather than asks for the rational mind, exciting the senses and leading to new discoveries.

Did you know something as simple as a bundle of beets could yield a week's worth of creations? I never had beets straight from the earth before----only canned and pre-sliced on salads, pretty and different, but not rawly inspiring. As I held the heart-shaped root in my hand, I felt it's precious power. The deep purple color is its natural expression----the violet-red that leaks from the fibrous slices onto the cutting board is its innate ability. It bleeds like a heart, staining my fingertips, connecting my touch to the beat of the earth.

The same beat of the earth I felt in last night's dance performance, Dance of Hope, performed in Barre, Vermont. In feeling the first dance----too open and comfortable not to feel (what a blessing!)----I cried a little. It was an odd dance to tear up to, because the energy was high and rootedly charged. The soft opening tempo was almost immediately interrupted by the foundation shaking wave, one that sprinted across center-stage, legs engaged, pounding heavily and determinedly into the wood, and then with a soul-fighting cry, soared out into the aisles of the crowd. I lit up with intimate recognition and deep love. I know this energy. I know it on a saved-my-life-and-soul level. The tears formed in combination with connection and joy. These are the rooted warriors: these are the hearts that understand the depths of soul, and by nature, know what creation wants to do:

It wants to fight for life and celebrate the blossoming of soul.

Under various lights, backgrounded by a deep purple glow and rooted in poverty, knowing of the taste of dirt and rusted water, the dancers expressed their freedom on stage and in the air. Their individual and shared experiences permeated the movements. Their bodies did not dance for superficial reasons, but for deep truths and intimate needs. Connected purely with the earth, the lines between soil and skin no longer exist, opening up the expression of the universe itself. That is why I cried. I felt the universe. I felt its pull on my most natural beauty, seeping it out through my tear-ducts and pores into an atmosphere that resonated and shared. We were all connected: all touched and changed by the same rooted red.

The beet knows this. As I dipped my most recent rock into a pool of its liquid pulse, I let the energy do the work. My mind had ideas: a thousand intentions and artful visions, but sometimes, you just have to let the body of the creation transform. After a day or two of soaking, I flipped over the rock and watched the color drip and absorb through. A ring had formed----a halo of third-eye violet that would never be forgotten. In looking closer, the rock itself began to speak to me, revealing fossilized seeds that sprinkled upward from the center, reminding me of seeds I've seen: a thousand paper lanterns lit and released into the night sky from URI's university grounds. A million sparkles in the hot summer air just before discovering the buried shelter of discarded deer carcasses. The illumated wings of gnats playing in my hand-made breeze. Life at its most vulnerable and darkest times. The beet juice needed to stain this into my being: it needed to emphasize these parts of the rock, before bleeding it all out. And as it bled----as it shed its pain and cleansed out the hurt----the need for fist and fight relaxed into an open palm where wholeness, oneness, and heavenly creation form.

I gaze now after time and perspective in awe. The beauty was in the process. The miracle is in the magical way everything healed. Healed and healing: a full and filled circle of natural atmosphere blue on the side of the rock reminds and mirrors back to the creation cluster in the center what it was and always will return to be. Like the female dancers on stage last night, the creation energy twirls, transforms, and expands in a harmonious, heart-beat way that rhythmically pulses back to the nucleus core. An adored and beloved process of creating and cleansing that is as known as my own heartbeat and as powerful as the Big Bang.

In a way now, I don't think I'll ever stop expanding. Beyond the black, white, and grey of right and wrong, negative input and positive input, there is the space where everything is vibrant and meaningful. Nutrition and inspiration come from everywhere. Beet drippings inspire and color an Easter bunny's iris's purple trillium and stain his bowl of eggs magenta. The diced root roasts into a side dish for dinner, an accent that highlights the gluten-free beet wraps that sat for a week in the fridge, odd, unusual, but colorfully sure of what to do. It feels good to be yourself. To be everything and every color of what you are. In the blossoming, creativity and love infuse all aspects. Not weak love. Not fake love, but real love. That deep, earthy-strong, beet-purple root. The color may change: it may pool out, transform, and shed, but the energy is never forgotten. And once it is felt, from the inside-out----the internal soul need to the outside connection----the input gathered and shared all around becomes a garden. Third-eye sight washed away the obvious negatives, and in the wake of that cleanse, the variety of input is endlessly beautiful.