Happy Halloween!!

This past Saturday night I attended an event called SPIRAL DANCE for the first time. It's organized by bestselling author Starhawk and celebrates the day of the dead. There was an altar where you could write the name of people you know who have died....and another that celebrates the birth of new babies. Apparently during this time of year, the veil between the living and dead is thinner than normal, so this is a powerful time to connect with all things spiritual.

There were hundreds upon hundreds of people there. We sang a lot of songs and watched dancers perform while we waited for the Spiral Dance itself to happen. During the Spiral Dance, everyone holds hands to create a huge line of people that spiral and weave around the big open space of the pavillion where the event was held. There were a couple of different things you could sing... One went, "Let it begin with each step we take. Let it begin with each change we make. Let it begin with each chain we break. Let it begin every time we awake" or you could sing rounds of "Let it begin now. Let it begin now" or rounds of "We are alive. We are alive."

As the chain of people weaved around the floor, we all looked into each others eyes as we sang the song of our choice in harmony. It was an incredibly moving and powerful experience. So many people gathered with the intention of sending healing, positive energy to the earth and our world! I just love partipating in these kinds of events. It feels great to focus my energy and thoughts toward my desire of making the world a happier place.

I recently wrote an entry about a NYC super skipper named Extreme Gene who is making a supercharged, extreme contribution to the skipping movement. He is truly taking skipping to its outer edge! I love it!

Well, Extreme Gene just wrote to let me know that Warren Miller is including a segment about Extreme Skipping in his latest Higher Ground film! Wow! I skipped on over to Warren Miller's website right away and here's the description of Extreme Gene's segment in the film...

In a Warren Miller first, urban skipper “Extreme Gene” shares his love, intensity and enthusiasm for this adventurous new sport. In this hilarious segment, Gene emphasizes the three main aspects that factor into exceptional skipping; rebellion, freedom of expression and style.

If you haven't already, you simply shouldn't skip the short film on Extreme Gene's website that explains what Extreme Skipping is all about. I guarantee you've never seen someone skip quite like Extreme Gene does. He has turned it into an art form. Check it! Yeee-haw Extreme Gene..... SKIP ON !

This weekend I spent a lot of time curled up with Marianne Williamson's latest book called The Gift Of Change. Like The Translucent Revolution which I wrote about recently, she talks about the shift in consciousness that is gradually happening in our world. I was so inspired by this passage that I felt moved to share it here...

An underground revolution is sweeping the hearts and minds of the people of the world, and it is happening despite the wars and terror that confront us. This revolution is a fundamental change of worldview, and it carries with it the potential to reorganize the structure of human civilization. It brings a basic shift in the thoughts that dominate the world. It wages a peace that will end all war. It is a global phenomenon that will change the cellular structure of the human race. To those who are part of it, and feel called to it, its reality is a growing if not obvious truth. To still others, it's a lofty but ridiculous notion, a preposterous and sill idea.

Yet no social revolution of any import emerged because everybody woke up one day saying, "I get it! I get it!" Such revolutions emerged instead from what anthropologist Margaret Mead described as "a small group of concerned citizens." Not only are such groups capable of changing the world, according to Mead, but in fact, they're the only thing that ever has. And they are doing it now.

A spiritually attuned counterculture is already in our midst. It is marked not by clothes or music, drugs or sex, as was the counterculture of the sixties, but by the internal attitude of those who perceive it. They make suggestions and comments that are just a little bit wiser; they bring new insights into areas previously locked down by the status quo. They see some star in the sky that no everyone is seeing. And in their presence, we start to see it too. --From The Gift of Change: Spiritual Guidance for a Radically New Life by Marianne Williamson (Harper San Francisco)

Ohhhhhh, I LOVE reading those words...I love feeling like I get to contribute to the revolution she describes by promoting New World Library's amazing authors. I love celebrating my freedom by skipping down the street and not worrying about people who might thing I'm crazy for doing so...I love how it makes me feel like I am doing my tiny part to make the world around me a little more happy and free!

Onward! Upward! Together we CAN change the world!

Ever since I created iskip.com in 1999, I've wanted to write a book. As someone who worked in the book publishing industry, it seemed like the natural thing to do to get my skipping message out there...Only I didn't realize how hard writing a book and getting it published really is!

When People Magazine did an article on my skipping efforts, a top literary agent inquired about representing me. Back then the working title of my project was SKIP ON! A Guide for Following Your Bliss ... All of my financial eggs were riding in my book project's basket and when my manuscript fell short with publishers, they were smashed into a billion little bits. Financially and creatively I was completley out of gas.

I went back to working at a full time job and it felt like my dream of writing a book and promoting skipping full time was dead. I couldn't feel it at the time, but am happy to report that the inspiration and hope it would take for me to eventually skip back to the drawing board on my book project was still in there....It just took three years for me to find it again....and that time is now!

Working on the book again is helping me realize that every aspect of my experience so far--from the highest high to the lowest low--are all extremely valuable parts of my story. It was impossible for me to write my book before going through the most challenging part of my journey...Now I see my ability to survive the dark times and to come out skipping on the other end is ultimately what the book is all about!

Writing a book is definitely the most challenging thing I have ever tried to do in my life...So please send me positive thoughts... Imagine my fingers happily skipping across the keyboard with lightness and ease! I can use all of the positive energy support I can get on this project!! Thanks! Skip on!!

This past weekend my skipping friend Tania and I had another fun adventure!

A couple weeks ago I got a call from another skipper named Dina who had been on one of the groups skips I used to lead in Golden Gate Park. She said she was making a documentary on depression and wanted to include something about skipping.

So Tania and I met up with Dina and her lovely camera person (whose name I don't know how to spell) in Golden Gate Park on Saturday to get some skipping footage and to be interviewed about the benefits of skipping. There was a drumming circle by the conservatory of flowers and we skipped to their magical beat. Little kids skipped with us. The three of us held hands and skipped all around. It was another grand skipping experience.

Skipping (the kind without a rope...just leaping happily down the street like we all used to do as kids) is great exercise for the body AND the spirit! It burns twice as many calories as walking and has less impact on the body than running does. Another interesting way to look at it is that running is based out of our fight or flight reflex. Animals run to get away from something...But skipping is like an animal frolicing freely in a field...The energy of skipping is playful and fun....I think that's what makes it my favorite form of exercise! (I should also say that I'm also pro-running and am not saying that PEOPLE who run are escaping.) Skip on!

This email from a skipper in Florida made me smile...

I love to skip and get friends skipping when we're walking somewhere in a group. I will now do it more often. In fact, I will add skipping to my daily spiritual practice! I want to read more on your website since I am admittedly an infrequent skipper. One holdback being I "think" I should only do it when wearing a bra... not to scare onlookers *smile* luckily if I am walking in a group with others, we're usually out in public in a parking lot on our way somewhere so I have one on anyway :)

Ladies, it is true that bouncing boobs can be a skipping hazard! When I did a lot of radio interviews about my quest to make skipping a more acceptable thing for adults to do, the morning disc jockeys used to love to ask me about this very topic! I told them that I'm such a bouncey skipper that I often double bag em' by wearing a sports bra and a regular bra! :-) That always got a laugh!

It is really fun to invite a group of people you are walking with to join you for a skip. That's actually how I first started skipping. I was out on a Friday night with my friend's Todd and Rudy when Rudy broke into a skip and said, "let's go!" Todd and I didn't miss a beat and before I knew it the three of us were skipping, laughing, and having a ball.

I hadn't skipped since I was a kid and an entire vision of starting a national skipping movement flashed through my mind. I thought about how much fun I was having, how it had to be great exercise, and how I could start skipping groups in San Francisco and tell the media about it!

I didn't take action on my vision for two more years after that first skip, but when i did, it came true! What a long strange skip it has been.

I'd like to encoruage you to invite someone else to skip with you the next time you are out for a walk! When you do write me at kimskips@peoplepc.com and tell me all about it! Skip on!

One of the books I am working on right now is called The Real Meaning of Life. It's one of those books that makes you laugh and makes you cry. But most importantly, it makes you stop and think about what exactly it is we are all doing here on this adventure called life.

The book is written by a sophomore at NYU named David Seaman. When he was a freshman, he typed "What is the meaning of life?" into an online forum and was overwhelmed by all of the responses he received. So much so that he created a website thats purpose was to ask the same question. Now some 50,000 hits and 2,000 answers later he's compiled the best answers he received into a book.

Here are a couple of the entries....

If you see a big ring of fire ahead of you and it scares you half to death, jump through it! It is only our fears that veil our true identity. Conquer these and you’ll find what’s left of you is love, a love so brilliant that ten thousand suns would not be your equal. We are all searching for truth, we all want happiness. Learn to love yourself and these gifts will follow. Stop looking outward...the answers lie within. And for God’s sake, stop grazing in the fields of chaos and fear that the media is cultivating for you. Fear sells, and we’re buyin’. You are more powerful than you know. Enjoy. — Jack Dempsey Boyd

Life is a cocktail. It consists of various measures of family, relationships, play, and work. Our quest, should we be prepared to accept it, is to find our unique mix. Every decision we make alters this mix. Learning from our choices and making corrections as necessary will enable each of us to find our perfect cocktail. — “Sir Percival Blakeney”

Beer, ribs, professional sports, and Miles Davis. — Mike Barber

I’m a twenty-year-old, so my view on life is still somewhat...hazy. I need to live more. I don’t know if I’m being original — if I’m not, at least I arrived at this on my own — but I think that the real meaning of life is “to look for the meaning of life.” It’s not a circular definition — I’m just saying that the generalization of something this profound is wrong.

Six billion people in the world, all different from the inside out, might have something in common, but the meaning of life? It should be more like “what’s the meaning of your life?” What are you? Why are you here? What are you looking for?

I’m still looking for my purpose, and I believe that’s the meaning of life: to look for it. — David Yim

Today's skipping email comes from an enthusiastic 22-year-old skipper....

I spent a year off in college, and skipped everywhere on campus. I actually had to start wearing more jewelry with jingle so I wouldn't scare people as I came barreling around the corners! I'm so glad to see that I'm not the only one out there with a passion for skipping. Which makes me wonder if there's anyone out there that loves jumping up and clicking their heels, and frolicing as much as I do... May you always have love in your heart, and a hand to hold as you skip!

Amanda, thanks for your peppy email...Your energy leaps right out of the computer screen! Hey, perhaps you should make a website called iclickmyheels.com! Skip on soul sister. Thanks for the email!

I've really been getting my blogging groove on lately...I am proud of myself for doing a post every day this week! Wow!

Today I have another skipping email I'd like to share....This one from Pam in Raleigh, NC.....

Kim; I loved to skip as a child and have been reading your newsletter for a while now. A friend from local church singles commited suicide this summer and the pastor who spoke at her memorial service challenged family and friends to do something ourselves that would honor her life. I signed up to walk in a Run for Life race that benefits a local home for pregnant teens since my friend loved children but never had any of her own. I have never run in a race as I have bad ankles. So I decided to skip as much as possible which I felt would make my friend smile. I took third in the 19 and up age range. I am 52. Not too bad for a first attempt. I am encouraged to skip on! If you need a head skipper in the Triangle area, I'm your gal!

Pam, what a touching skipping story...Thank you for sharing it. Isn't it fun to skip in walk/run events! It really spices things up.

As for being a head skipper, I definitely encourage you to skip loud and skip proud in Raleigh and would love to do a profile about your love of skipping on iskip.com. At the moment, there is not a unified head skipper contingent. However, I am slowly but surely working on a book about skipping and am collecting email addresses of skippers around the country who want to help create a national skipping day once it is published. I will add your email to the list...and in the meantime, SKIP ON girlfriend! :-)

I am a book publicist for a wonderful company called New World Library in Novato, California. I have worked there since March and can't tell you how great it feels to finally have a job I love with all of my heart.

When the skipping movement was at its height, I quit my book publishing job to focus on getting the word out about skipping full time. I naively assumed that if I leapt, the financial net would magically follow! Not! I basically skipped myself into financial ruin....and getting back on the beaten path once I skipped off wasn't easy!

Before finding my work home here at New World, I had some pretty crazy employment experiences, including getting fired on the day before Christmas by my 73-year-old bodybuilder boss. It wasn't pretty and I am so grateful that part of my life adventure has come and gone! Good riddance.

New World Library publishes amazing books that are dedicated to changing people's lives. On days when I don't have much skipping news, I thought it might be cool to share a quote or small exceprt from one of our books!

One that I am particularly passionate about is called The Translucent Revolution: How People Just Like You are Waking Up and Changing the World. The book's author Arjuna Ardagh examines the shift in consciousness that is gradually happening in our world and explains it in a way that isn't too new agey or out there. As someone who wants more than anything to do my part to make the world a better place, I love the book.

Here's a brief quote from The Translucent Revolution that recently appeared in O Magazine...

"We constantly resist not only our grief, but also our wild passion and sexuality, our anger, even our exuberance and joy, repressing their free expression. Big feelings overwhelm us. They can easily upset the fragile equillibrium of our lives. We keep a lid on ourselves, till we periodically explode. We don't realize that any deep feeling, pleasurable or painful, can be a wave we surf home into ourselves, into love."

So here's to feeling big .... dreaming big.... living big.... and skipping big! Skip on Arjuna Ardagh...Thanks for writing such a great book.

I recently got this email from someone named Madeline and wanted to share....

Hi, I live in Winter Springs, a suburb in Orlando...I don't actually skip, but, hey, there's a spring in my step & I have a very bouncy personality. Does that count?

Absolutely that counts!! In fact, that is what it is all about! Iskip is more about being a positive energy kind of person with a spring in her/his step than the actual physical act of skipping! There are so many different ways the energy of skipping shows up in our lives.... Blowing bubbles.. Playing with little kids... Dancing... Laughing... Singing.... There are unlimited ways to bounce through life! What counts is having enough courage to be true to yourself so your inner light shines as brightly as possible. Let it shine! Let it shine! Let it shine!

On Saturday night, I participated in an all night Mayan prayer ritual called Mitotes with a group with 10 other women. My intention going into the experience was to find the willingness to believe in myself enough to write the book my heart has been calling me to write. I went in to the experience hoping to find enough inspiration that the scared little kid in me can once again have the courage to skip couragously through my life.

We divided into three groups and took turns singing/chanting a song/prayer that goes, "Spirit of the living God move afresh in me. Spirit of the living God move afresh in me. Melt me. Mold Me. Fill me. Use me. Spirit of the Living God move afresh in me" over and over throughout the night. Each group of women sang for 20 minutes at a time before waking up the next group whose turn it was to sing.

The sweet sound of singing women's voices filled the room from 10 p.m. until 4 a.m. In between my group's turns, I drifted in and out of sleep until it was time to sit up and sing again. At certain times throughout the night, I felt myself throwing little hissy fits...I questioned why I had signed up for this. I was tried of singing and just wanted to sleep...But the part of me that was totally engaged and excited to be there was MUCH stronger and clearer than the part of me that wanted to be a brat.

It felt really good to just sing through the patches of resistance as I powefully invited the spirit in more and more. It's really quite perfect since what was at stake for me was the WILLINGNESS to move in the direction of my dreams and to not let my fear get in the way anymore. My mitotes experience gave me the opportunity to see how it feels to move past my stubborn childlike will and inner critic in a gentle powerful and feminine way! Through song!

We slept from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. and I had amazing dreams. Then several of us went to Glide's 9 a.m. service. (Glide is a very open minded church in San Francisco where EVERYONE is welcome... Christians, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, and even Atheists come together to celebrate life.) I skipped around the church as the choir sang "It's time for a miracle!" and it felt great. I was soooo high and full of the spirit!

I went home and slept soundly for four hours and then got up and worked on the introduction for my book. I spent several hours putzing around with it and am feeling really excited about the direction it is taking.

Onward and upward! Spirit of the living God move afresh in me.

Blowing bubbles ranks right up there with skipping as far as my favorite ways to bring more joy and positive energy to every day life!

When I go out in the city on Friday nights, I often bring a bottle of bubbles with me. It is great fun to stand on a street corner blowing bubbles and watching how they bring out the kid in the people that pass by. Bubble lovers respond by chasing after them....or trying to pop them...or by saying, "BUBBLES!!" in an enthusiastic childlike voice. It's great fun.

Saturday before last, I attended the Love Parade in San Francisco and blew bubbles as the floats and dancers went by. A man I didn't know started taking pictures of me, and I asked him to email them if any of them turned out. I was so happy when he actually did! The picture above is from that fun, magical, love filled day! There are more fun pictures from the Love Parade on the photographer Mikhail Rezhepp's website. Skip on! Bubble on!