Longing for New York City

I recently took a trip to New York. I did the things I usually do which is sit in random cafes, eat bagel and egg sandwichs, drink overpriced coffee and do an absurd amount of people watching. There is something about New York that is so amazingly beautiful and so incredibly ugly that catches my heart in a way no other place does. There is something about New York that distinguishes it from any other city; there are many things actually. It's the sheer amount of people. The incredibly diverse faces in the massive masses overwhelm me and cause me to pause on the subject of what it means to be human. There are so many variations in New York. There's the guy in Union Square who blasts his music from Flashdance and proceeds to twist and contort his body in ways that ancient Indian yogis would envy. There's the man who cross-dresses in addition to celebrating St. Patrick's day with her (his?) dyed green hair and leprechaun shoes. There's the vendors from New Jersey and elsewhere who, every week, bring their wares to the city and make a spread that ranges from homemade goat's cheese and freshly picked lima beans to free fashion advice and poorly painted watercolors. There's the highschool kids just out of school cursing and sweating, schlepping their enormous bags around, one ear plugged with ipod headphones. There's the homeless man asleep on someone's stoop while 100 feet away people dine and discuss the economy over expensive wine. There's Wall Street and the East Village, there's avenue C and poetry cafes and Egyptian street vendors selling hot dogs and bands jamming out the sounds of the blues, the sounds of the city, the very sounds that make up the lifeblood of New York and take part in telling her story.

Though I've never lived there and probably never will, there is a part of me that always aches for New York. When I meet people from there (really from there), I instantly want to know their story. I want to hear about the grit, the noise, the endless stream of activity and life. In my mind, there simply is no place like New York. It exists in a category of its own. It's untouchable in that way, and yet, always changing. It's been accused of being superficial and shallow, congested and dirty. I see that and yet, I also see this incredible beauty despite of (maybe because of) these qualities. I can't explain it though I desperately want to. It's a feeling I have when I'm there and when I think of it. It's the feeling I get everytime upon entering the city on that Greyhound bus. It's a feeling that anything is possible and, because anything is possible, it's this spine-tingling mixture of excitement and dread. New York is a strange kind of soul elixir. She shakes us up a bit, stirs our cauldron and lights us up with her fiery breath. I feel inspired, dazed, moved and always aching for more and yet begging for her to stop enticing me through the streets, my calves and feet practically paralyzed with exhaustion. I want to swallow her up and I want her to fill me. New York is life - ugly, dirty, marvelous, moving, dancing...And here's a little piece of it I wanted to share. Union Square one random afternoon. The sun is shining, people are dancing and clapping. Just another day in New York City.

Love and sex

I've been thinking a lot lately about the intersection between love and sex. Friends and I were talking recently about how a woman responds to sex differently than a man and that this difference has been scientifically substantiated. When we women have sex and orgasm, we are lucky to be flooded with that magical oxytocin elixir. Read below (taken from an on-line article written by Jennifer Roback Morse):

"Women connect to their sex partners, and to their children, due to a hormone called oxytocin. Women secrete this hormone during orgasm, and while breast feeding. Oxytocin creates a response of 'attach and connect.' It promotes attachment between a mother and her newborn infant, so that she will enjoy taking care of the helpless infant’s needs. Oxytocin promotes her connection with her sex partner, who after all, may become the father of her child. All this is nature’s way of keeping the woman bonded to her child and to her child’s father."

Interesting, huh? When talking to my mom recently about having sex and not wanting to be attached to the person, she said essentially, "Honey, you'd have to have a heart of stone to not become attached." And she's absolutely right. It's amazing how having sex with someone almost instantaneously changes our view of that person. All of a sudden, he has a golden aura about him. His words are like music and his touch is pure magic. I find myself thinking that having casual sex is a dangerous act, indeed. It's like playing russian roulette with our fragile hearts. And yet, I am too afraid to surrender my heart to fully be in love. In my mind and body, love = serious pain. The poem below is my attempt to explore all of this. I hope you enjoy.

Touching you

I touch the stars
Moonlight streams across your face
Just feel, you say
Feel the fire
and all the oceans
the wet forests
and driving rains
Feel me
and God entering you

Skin to Skin
God is present in that smallest of spaces
between two naked bodies
even if we refuse to feel such presence

I don’t want to fall in love
I later tell you
But, how do I not do this
when you are so close and deep?
Your very breath enters me, sweet and intoxicating

How painful to keep a heart guarded
And yet, how necessary for me
now
I have not entered the fire
but will myself around it
taunt it even
throw things into it
watch them burn up
and dissolve into smoke and ashes
sometimes I even claim the fire as mine
but it’s just a game
just play

I have had friends tell me
they were born to be mothers
born to something clear as pure truth

Me,
I have inklings
I have lusts
and imaginings
The fire dances wickedly in my soul
and certain things touch me,
deeply
like music
like new lovers whispering sweetness
like the ocean roaring its white foam
around my body
like singing voices in harmony
like naked skin

But, my dark heart
feels scarred

beyond

such blue outlined knowing
of real love
Too afraid
of that black abyss
waiting to swallow me up
that’s what falling in love
feels like

I prefer now to just dance
heart open to other things
not falling in love
not that

The burden of the Musings

A number of you have asked me where have I gone? To be completely honest, I was on a bit of a creative hiatus. The juices just weren't flowing - at least in the direction of words. But I find the muse is teasing me again and demanding of me to stop being lazy and to begin again my love affair with the word and with life, in general. So, I'm gonna start slowly and softly.

But I'm back...

The Silent Articulation of a Face

I just wrote my heart out and half of it was lost. I'm too distraught to try to recreate it but here is an equally appropriate Rumi poem:


Love comes with a knife, not some
shy question, and not with fears
for its reputation! I say
these things disinterestedly. Accept them
in kind. Love is a madman,

working his wild schemes, tearing off his clothes,
running through the mountains, drinking poison,
and now quietly choosing annihilation.

A tiny spider tries to wrap an enormous wasp.
Think of the spiderweb woven across the cave
where Muhammad slept! There are loves stories,
and there is obliteration into love.

You've been walking the ocean's edge,
holding up your robes to keep them dry.

You must dive naked under and deeper under,
a thousand times deeper! Love flows down.

The ground submits to the sky and suffers what comes. Tell me, is the earth worse
for giving in like that?

Don't put blankets over the drum!
Open completely. Let your spirit-ear
listen to the green dome's passionate murmur.

Let the cords of your robe be untied.
Shiver in this new love beyond all
above and below. The sun rises, but which way
does night go? I have no more words.

Let soul speak with the silent
articulation of a face.

I Want

Here’s the thing:

I want you
and…

I want myself
I want the sky
the moon at night
blazing through the clouds
the hard rain that comes down in sheets
my skin soaked through
water bleeding into bone

I want your mouth
and…

I want my own mouth
words streaming straight from the heart
my throat filled with sunlight
my chest free and breathing easy

I want your hands
and…

I want my own hands
open and dancing
spirals of life curling in them
bursting out and up

I want to curl into you
press against you
arch and rock
I want to thread our limbs together
and lose my end and your beginning

And then

I want to peel myself back
take back all parts
this life
is mine
and mine only
this body
is mine
and mine only


There is
A thin blue stream
flickering inside of me
pulling at the threads
of my life always
turning me around
widening the path
shortening the distance
between me and G-d
This path I must follow
I have strayed from it
many times
in search of love
I will not do that again

I will not give up my heart
will not surrender my voice
will not ignore the willful callings
will not fall asleep on my soul

Divine love is strong inside me now
Flaming heat roaring loud racing towards itself
always
and holding my hand carrying me along

Carry me
heart aflame
burn up untruths
grind down old stories
rip apart worn-out ideas of self
blaze new paths
speed so fast and yell over the wind
free
freely
freedom
this is what it looks like
remember this
remember
remember

"Our ability to live in peace with each other depends first and foremost on our ability to accept all that is different between us.

I want to get closer to you, but let me be who I am.
I welcome you coming closer to me, while respecting who you are.

On our own individual paths we are all looking for the bread, the water, the wind, and a dignified life.

And yes, we all cling to love."

***Idan Raichel

Blast from the Past

From an old journal during my trip to Sicily. May you find it as entertaining as I do.

26 Feb 02

So there I was in La Valle dei Templi. A bit of a red-faced morning since I got on the bus just as it pulled up in Agrigento meaning that I had to wait for 30 minutes. Numerous people came up to me asking if this was the bus for the Temples. “Si.” And where do you buy a ticket? “A la stazione.” All the while I sat there, my pockets empty of any sort of ticket. I never needed a ticket before. Buses in Italy seem to work on a sort of honor system. That is, most buses. Eventually, the bus driver boarded, followed by various people all having tickets in hand. Oh, I’m a real big schmuck, I thought. When he asked for mine, I said dumbly, “Oh, non posso comprare uno qui?” No, you idiot, you already told half the people on this bus that they had to go to the station to buy one. He sort of rolled his eyes and with a dismissal of his hand told me to go to the bar in the station. Right.

But I ended up in the right place. The Valley of the Temples. A name such as this conjures up so many images, doesn’t it? None of which completely met my expectations. In my closed-eyed fantasies, my mind stirred up images of towering columns of half-washed away marble, young flowers shooting out of long ago excavated tombs, soft amber light falling on ruins, people’s houses built long before Christ. I imagined myself running my hand along the partially eroded human sand castles, my intuitive mind somehow tapping into the lives that were led here so long ago.

The columns were definitely there and so was Giuseppe. “Una groupa? Una groupa?” No, no groupa. Definitely no group. Uh-oh. “Lone woman! Lone woman!” I could practically hear the radar going off in his round head. Everything about him seemed round. I suppose it was the combination of shortness and, well, fatness. Let’s not be eloquent here. He certainly wasn’t.

He had been in the middle of eating a panini when he called out to me. His mouth was full, bits of white chunks lodged into his teeth and moist whiteness wedged into the corners of his mouth. He followed me even though I clearly said I wasn’t with a group (nor did I want to be) and continued talking to me in his thick Sicilian tongue. Thick both in language and unswallowed food that seemed to be fermenting in his mouth. How is it possible that it takes a man 10 minutes to swallow one mouthful of food?! Maybe he has a salivary gland problem.

He was mildly interesting. He told me about some of the temples we walked past. I understood enough of his Italian to be slightly engaged. And then, of course, the conversation strayed into that same dull place it always does when a man is so uncreative in his wooing tactics. So when were you born? You like pizza? You like dancing? Let me take you out dancing and for a “bueno pizza,” digging his pointer finger into his cheek and twisting it everytime he said, “bueno pizza.” This gesture made me laugh with its childish ridiculousness. Bad move since he got the impression that he was amusing me. Even when I said I understood him, he frantically gestured and repeated the same things over and over again. I know Agrigento well so at six I will pick you up and we will eat a “bueno pizza.” The finger again.

I must admit that I silently contemplated the idea. Hmmm. A night alone with a possible bottle of wine or going out with this slightly irritating man for a “bueno pizza?” No finger this time. Wine? Pizza? Wine in bed eating chocolate, reading a good book or sitting across the table, having to watch this man eat and talk at the same time? Just as my decision seemed clear and amidst Giuseppe’s perpetual questioning (sounded more like an irritating buzz at this point), the round man farted. Loud. I heard it. And immediately following it, he began clucking. Just like a chicken. The round man had turned into a farting chicken. No, no, no, I will not go out with you and have a bueno pizza. Thanks but no thanks. Okay then, niente. I’ll see you, he said. Probably not.

And you think the story’s over but it’s not. Not yet. I did see beautiful temples. I ran my hands over them and placed a flower in the grotto of a ruined stone formation in blessing for a friend. I saw empty tombs and crouched into one where I smelled piss. Tomb turned outhouse. I wandered through flowers, as the strong wind raced across my face and through my clothes. It was all very beautiful and somber. And then I was finished. Tired of fantasizing. Tired of walking. Somewhat tired of having only myself with whom to share thoughts.

I went to buy a bus ticket since the old one had expired by ½ hour. I could feel this man’s eyes on me. The radar. The look. Not again, I thought. I can’t even play along this time. Can’t answer his stupid questions. He came up to me. “Che bella!” One rotten tooth came at me. His hair was slicked back and he had gunk in the corners of his eyes, like he had just woken up and only thought of slicking back his hair with greasy pomade. He touched my face and came close. I grumbled something in English. Pointless, I know, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the fire burning in the pit of my stomach and my blood vessels that felt on the edge of a great big messy explosion. My grumblings got louder and I started pacing back and forth, him following close behind. Where is that goddamned bus?! “Do you like dancing?” “Nope.” “Do you like beer?” “Nope. I like the bus. That’s the only thing I like.” After what seemed like years, the bus pulled up and he followed in his little black car. And when I got off the bus, and when he got out of his little black car, he had this strange look of triumph, his tan jacket whipping around him.

* * *

Looking back and reflecting on this particular experience, I am reminded of the vulnerability that often comes with being a solo female traveler. I remember being on guard, always aware of my surroundings. I also remember putting myself in situations that were not so safe but seemed fine at the time. Like the time I went back to Paolo’s place in Nice. It was just he and I. The door was closed. He started massaging my hand and I immediately became aware of all exits. What would I do if he tried something? He wasn’t a big guy but still…Luckily, he was a total gentleman.

And then, there are moments of absolute random kindness. Like the time I was walking down a street at night in Kumasi. God, I loved that city. I was so thirsty. And just as I thought this, a man passing me offered me his bag of water. Few words were even exchanged but there we were – two strangers passing on a dark street at night in West Africa and there was only beauty between us.

I have certainly been blessed in this life and still am. The web we weave really is quite extraordinary. I was thinking yesterday that in my massage practice alone, I have literally touched people worldwide. It was such a powerful thought and realization. And we can all do just this – practice kindness every day, even in the most challenging situations. That is where the real practice lies.

With Tenderness

This time last year you were still alive. I had already kissed you goodbye, ruffled your so soft ears and told you I loved you and to be a good boy. This time last year I was already at work busy with busy-ness. This day last year you died.

I can still feel the softness of your fur under my fingertips. I can still smell your rich dog smell – like the grass that you loved to leap through especially after it had rained. Rain. Grass. Wetness. Warmth. Fur. Black. Dark. Golden. Love.

Your death marked the beginning of a heart-wrenching year filled with what seemed like unbearable loss. For those who have not had the opportunity to forge a relationship with an animal, perhaps it’s hard to understand the grief that follows the death of this relationship. I will not try to explain the beauty and power of such a relationship. But I will say the love I feel for you goes as deep as an ancient spring. And this spring has irrevocably changed my life, changed how I love, how I live. In death, you reinforce my already strong belief in loving every precious moment, in not wasting a single breath, in opening our hearts even wider and deeper to the pain and joy of this brief and wondrous life.

This day marks the end of a cycle for me. I shed some tears this morning in thinking about you and our life together. Your death marked the end of a kind of innocence. In its place new seeds have sprouted and grown stronger with each day. They are seeds of wisdom, courage, strength and many heartfelt promises – to not give in to fear, to not live from a place of anger or blame, to not be a victim of life. Your death also forced me to slow down, to not work so hard. In grief, time slowed to an absolute stillness and deafening quiet. My heart may have even stopped for a moment. And it was in this stillness that I sat for a long while. Dark. Alone. Solitude. Doubt. Anger. Fear. Loss. Grief. Tears. Death.

With your death, I experienced a death of myself as well. And this happened over many months. Dying and dying again over and over in many ways and many places. Les petits morts. But from death comes life. And today, this day following closely after Spring marks new life and love. I trust again in the intelligence of this cycle of death and birth.

Coming into my house today with you so strongly on my mind and in my heart, I could have sworn I saw a fluttering of dark wings. Maybe it was your spirit come to visit, to say I love you and I am guarding you in death as I did in life. I am guarding your heart so you may be free to love and love and love again through future heartbreak and loss and death. May each time your heart break open a little more to love that much more. May it get bigger and wider and more spacious. May it expand as large as the infinite universe. And I say to you, dear furry friend, I promise to love with big bold strokes, unabashedly, unashamedly, dancing with all my might, no holding back.

Eyes wide open

So, while I was standing in line at the bank today, I watched the news and they were covering the anti-war protesting in San Francisco. People were laying in the streets blocking traffic, people were being arrested and taken away in handcuffs. And I thought to myself, this should be happening all across the country right now. I felt my blood pressure go up and I started feeling angrier and angrier. Why, as a people, as Americans, have we not been more vigilant about protesting what our government has been doing for the last 7 years? And I'm not speaking just about the war. I'm talking about environmental degradation, the disintegration of our public school systems, the fact that few of us (myself included) can afford basic health care. If something serious were to happen to me right now, I would be in deep shit. Are we blinded by the entertainment industry, deafened by our own survival instincts, numb to the fact that our country, and our world, seems to be in a serious state of turmoil?

Today, I read one of Barack Obama's most recent speeches. The title said it had to do with race, which it did, but it had to do with so much more than that. He's calling for unification. For us to have faith and hope in ourselves to change the course of our individual lives and, ultimately, this country. Feeling his words reverberate throughout my body, I am reminded of the importance of each little decision we make because collectively, we have a huge impact. It's a paradox isn't it? I was talking with a friend the other night about how our individual lives are so insignificant in a way. But, as a group, we have some serious influence over the world. This is the part most of us have forgotten, I think. We are a part of something much larger than ourselves. When I say no to a plastic bag in the grocery store, I am saying no (and yes) to so many things. No to unnecessary pollution. No to lazy convenience. No to an oil and war-mongering administration that doesn't seem to give a shit about quality of life. And yes! Yes to a cleaner future. Yes to biodiversity. Yes to clean water and clean air.

Do you think I'm exaggerating the meaning of taking a plastic bag? Multiply your one plastic bag by the millions that are taken everyday by other fellow Americans. This is what I'm talking about. We all matter. What we do matters in this world because there are so damn many of us these days! And a plastic bag is just a small example. Do you know that, according to Earth:the Sequel, "the United States will have to cut emissions by 80%." If we continue at the present rate of energy usage, "the scientific consensus is that inaction will change the earth within a few decades into a place unlike any ever inhabited by humans. Business as usual will open the door to catastrophe: flooding and the dislocation of millions of people in South Asia's vast deltas; chronic drought and mass malnourishment in Africa; wildfires, deadly heat waves, and coastal destruction in the United States; the extinction of half the world's living species."

Is this the kind of world you want to live in? It'd be easy for us to blame this very possible scenario on our fucked up government but, quite honestly, what we really need to do, in my opinion, is to simply look at ourselves and our own personal lives. How is George W. a reflection of myself and my own carelessness? He is merely an example of human thoughtlessness of which we are all guilty to some degree.

An example: a friend of mine recently shared with me that her mom is working on a new home. "It's not even a house," my friend said. It's massive and it's just for herself and her husband. Is this really necessary? Why the ostentatiousness? The excess? And you know what I think it is? So many of us are living in spiritual and emotional poverty. We have lost our connection to our tribe. We don't dance and sing around the fire anymore. We don't braid one another's hair or go hunting together. And I'm not saying we should go back to these ways but we need to find the equivalent to this. It's not enough to work day after day and sit in front of the television and do the same thing the next day and the day after that. This kind of monotony breeds the kind of consumerism that seems to run rampant in America now. The idea is that a new gadget will surely alleviate the deathly boredom of suburban existence. But it doesn't, does it? It's just more crap.

So what does it take to live an extraordinary, passionate life? To make very moment count? I invite us to think about this. I think part of it is not letting fear govern our decisions. We must not be afraid to leave our comfort zones. We must connect with one another and not through some silly electronic gadget. Face-to-face with eye and soul contact. In the grocery store. In the park. While shopping. We need to challenge one another to live more passionately and more creatively. This weekend, I hope to sit around a fire with some close friends and to sing some songs and to tell some stories. If we all felt nourished, deeply nourished, maybe we wouldn't be such parasites to the planet.

Woven

my eyes so tired
but my heart content
with you
the universe
the vast umbrella of stars
the half-lit moon
drunken on itself

my life
like a web
reaching
repairing
stretching
inviting
new and wondrous
strands of thought
tastes
experiences

could it be so simple
as saying yes to what we want
no to what we don't want?
if so,
may the stars bathe me in sweetness tonight
while the fire in my heart warms my soul
and your touch quenchs
a longtime thirst

Yes to you a thousand times
to life
to breath
to solace
to warmth
to new beginnings

This one life

It's a bright and sunny day here in Hawaii. I woke up a little bit ago and have been reflecting on some things. One thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is work. Two months ago, I consolidated my schedule so I would be on my land more and have been working only 3 days a week, sometimes 4. What's interesting are the feelings that have been coming up regarding this. Part of me feels guilty - like I should be working more. I've always worked a lot and have gone through brief periods of working less but this is the longest I've gone only working half a week. And, of course, there's another part of me that feels great and liberated! I have so much more time to myself to invest in creative projects and adventure. People always say try things on when young because there may not be another chance. I want to debunk this statement and fully integrate this newfound feeling of freedom into my hopefully long life. I know feelings don't last forever but maybe insights can. And what I'm learning is that quality of life is most important, however, quality of life is affected by how much we work and earn since, without some money, we are somewhat limited in what we are able to do. Although, even this idea has been debunked by various people.



In an earlier entry, I talked a little about Poppa Neutrino. I doubt he has a savings account of any kind or a 401k. And yet, he lives a passionate, creative life. He is also okay lugging around a "portable home" made of scrap wood. I can't say that resonates with me but the point I'm trying to make is how important it is to come to some kind of realization about what it means for each of us to live a creative, passionate life. There's so many books these days on this subject. It's ironic to me in a way because part of living passionately is to tap into our own creative juices. Do we really need to be told how to do this? Isn't part of the problem that we've all been so programmed from an early age how to be? So, wouldn't the real process be one of de-programming? That's the way I see it. We have to clear away the clutter. Who are the voices that hold us back? Are they our parents? Teachers? The voices have come to sound like our own but they're not.

In my life now, I am learning to be more discerning about who I share my hopes and dreams with. Some people are so good at dashing them. And, like freshly germinated seeds, they're so fragile in their new life and could die just as easily as they could live. So, I hold back but not with myself or, at least this is what I'm working on. I still have very strong voices of self-doubt that love to question my every maneuver in life. And while magic surrounds us all the while, we sometimes aren't able to see it through the many filters with which we've been programmed. And so that's what I mean about clearing away the clutter. Sometimes we have to disregard what we've been told about ourselves. I've always been told that I'm so sweet and good. Not bad qualities but this holds me back. Maybe I don't want to be sweet and good. Maybe I want to be sexy or sweaty or bold or feisty or stubborn or reckless or rebellious or creative or whatever! I want to be everything and sometimes nothing. I want to experience life in its many forms and not hold myself back because of ideas I may have about myself that were imposed on me at a very early age. This had nothing to do with me as an individual but had everything to do with the people doing the imposing. Unfortunately, as a child, we don't know any of this so we take it all in. But, at some point, we have to throw it all up and let it go. But it's a long, sometimes painful, process.

Where am I going with all of this? When it comes to the guilty feelings I mentioned earlier about work, I'm realizing that working to understand myself is just as important, if not more important, as it is to work for money. It's equally purposeful. I guess that's where I am now. I'm getting to know myself more fully in this time. Taking pause to tune in and discover what I truly want to do. Because it's about the quality of this one life I have. How do I want to spend it? How do I want to spend each moment of every day? Even when I'm doing something I don't necessarily want to do (like taxes!) how can I reroute my thinking so that it doesn't feel like torture?

Now the sun is out and has been for weeks. It's time to do some watering. Watering of the soil. Watering of the soul. It's all the same, really.

LoVE, lOvE, LOve

Well, hello. I haven't written in some time and it's already the 2nd day of March! Happy March! My motto for March is work less, play more. (Though, work enough to save money to go to Italy :)

I woke this morning to a beautiful and already HOT day. I also awoke to the sound of a bird fluttering its wings. This is fairly usual. The birds like to hang out and flap their wings on my roof, however, this flapping sounded a little bit louder and more frantic than usual. Turns out a bird had somehow managed to get into my house. (Note: this house is built home-made style by my own two hands and hands of others, namely my friend, David. God bless you, wherever you are today!) And so, being a homemade house, there are holes and open areas and places where things don't meet exactly right. But there's no other house like it - I tell you that!)

Anyway, getting back to the bird. It was flying this way and that, around my bed, crashing into my windows. (I have lots of big clear windows.) Poor thing. I opened up everything - doors, windows and it must have somehow found its way out after hitting its poor beak numerous times.

Now, the clouds seem to be rolling in. The horizon is gray and the air is much cooler, gratefully. We desperately need rain and I would do a rain dance if I knew how. But enough about the weather!

What I really want to share is the experience I had last night, late into the glorious star studded blackness. A couple days ago, I received an invitation to attend a ceremony called "Essensual touch." Without going into detail now, I will just say that I initially felt very resistant. My friend needed an R.S.V.P. and so I said I would go. That locked me in because a new and important practice for me is doing what I say I am going to do. As the time approached, however, I got more and more excited. I had no idea what to expect, no idea who was going to be there (except for the friends organizing the meeting) or who I was going to meet. But I knew the night would be magical.

We arrived one-by-one, in pairs, in triads. Each person was greeted by two welcomers. One held a bowl of salt water and the other a bowl of fresh rosemary. One asked to "draw up into your mind the worst self-judgment you have of yourself." As that thought registered, the other person dipped rosemary into the water and as she sprinkled it around the newcomer, she asked that this judgment be released. This set the tone for the evening.

And what an evening - we all gathered in a large white room. The floors were covered in soft padding and bedding with many fluffy pillows. We gathered into a circle and connected. We were led through various exercises to attune ourselves to ourselves and to connect with one another. After about an hour of facilitated movement and exercises, the space was opened up to freeform massage and touch. (This was the part I felt most anxious about.) But, to my wonderful surprise and delight, it was wonderful. I partnered with a lovely man and he massaged my neck, shoulders and back (which I desperately needed) and I worked on him, rubbing away soreness, stiffness and connecting all the while. My hands were worked on, I was tickled lightly, I hugged and cuddled, all with different people at different times. It was spontaneous, precious, human contact that was wholesome, nourishing, yummy wonderfulness.

And what I'm thinking now (as rain spatters on me from my open window) is how needed nights like this are in the world today. We all need to deeply connect with one another but not necessarily at a sexual level. With so much fear and anxiety about the future and the present, connecting with one another at such a soulful place and with such a physical presence somehow makes everything okay. Just to be held, to be cuddled and touched makes all the difference. I touch people everyday in my profession but this night felt different. We were all there with the intention that we were responsible for ourselves in what we gave and what we received. We were there with open hearts and open minds, giving and receiving.

I carry this feeling with me and will hold it throughout the day. It is a feeling and a knowing that we are all so precious and all so full of love. We just sometimes get blocked. And another thought. I carry many judgements, as most of us do. I judge myself, I judge people and situations. I am realizing, however that though I may not be able nor need to stop these judgments, I don't need to act on them. That is a new practice of mine. To have the judgement, to acknowledge it but to not let it stop me from living a full open-hearted life.

To all of you, much love. It's time to dance!

Sucker punched by love

Dedicated to Z, wherever you are, whatever you're doing...

I carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it (anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear

no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want

no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you



here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)



-e.e. cummings



So, today is Valentine's Day. (It's also Mimi's birthday - Happy Birthday!) And last night, grief dragged me from the dance floor and got me in a half nelson, leaving me begging on my knees for mercy. It's always amazing to me how this happens. I'm going along fine and then all of a sudden, good ole heartsick, lovesick grief takes his last inhale of a cigarette, throws it down, smashes it with his foot and comes roaring after me. Doesn't he have better things to do? Humor aside, last night was a rough one. Makes me wonder what kind of sick thing love is to twist us all up, wring us out, leave us panting on the floor. It's so good when it's good and so bad when it's bad and gone.

The worst part of it is the thinking that love may never happen again. That was it, last call, going, going, gone... It only happens to other people. Other people get married, have kids, buy a house together, go on exotic vacations. Not me, nope. Not yet, anyway. Am I too strong? Too stubborn? Too uncompromising? Too compromising? Too weak? Too what?! I know I'm asking the wrong questions here. I know there's also no right questions. Life just putters along and we grab hold when we can and let go when we need to. Still, I didn't want to let go of this one. I don't want to let go of this one. So maybe I won't, for now. I'll just hang on until my heart says, "okay, no more." I'll love across miles, across ocean, across sky and over many time zones. I'll speak to you in my mind, from my heart and only there.

Happy Valentine's Day to all.

Cuts like a machete

I have a confession and an apology to make.

Apology first:
I'm sorry for the lack of pictures! I can't seem to upload them onto my site. I was just reading a friend's blog where he wrote that a blog without pictures is a half-assed blog indeed. And I agree! I want to ameliorate the problem but, alas, my hands are tied. Another complication is that I have yet to invest in a digital camera. So, for the time being, my friends, may words be enough.

Confession:
I am terrible at sending birthday cards. My mom happened to bring this to my attention today. My point was that I call - isn't that enough? It's a bunch of consumeristic, hallmark crap anyway isn't it? I do believe in honoring someone on their birthday. I know I like getting cards. But I also prefer handmade things or a phone call or whatever kind of acknowledgement someone wants to give me. So, enough said about that.

Right now, outside of my office, someone has been using a leaf-blower for God knows how fucking long. These are one of the most absurd inventions ever made. They're noisy, stupid, wasteful and, for what? To move some leaves around! I must go on a rant about this because there are some things that are intolerable and this is one of them. My other rant is plastic bags. I have a friend staying with me now, God love him, but for the life of me, I don't understand why whenever he gets food of some sort, he comes back with it in a plastic bag. If he were a nimwit of some sort, I would understand, but he's not. And it's something we've talked about. If there's one small thing that people can do to make one iota of a difference, it's refusing to take a plastic bag. You know what I think the problem is? We get caught up so much in the big, huge problems that we face that we forget about all of the little things that we can do that add up to big change. This friend of mine was an Environmental Studies major in college so he's aware of all the big ideas and theories and blah, blah, blah, but when it comes time to put that theory into practice, there's some kind of disconnect.

I've been reading this Joseph Campbell book and last night I read a passage where he states that people would rather go to a lecture about heaven than go to heaven themselves. I really think he's got a good point. Most people would rather (and do!) sit at home, lounging on their comfortable couch while living their lives vicariously through some stupid reality show than living their own life marvelously. I want to be intoxicated by my own life. But it's easier, in a way isn't it, to sit back and stay clean, to not dirty ourselves with the disappointments, the challenges, the decision-making. Life is fucking hard sometimes. We get our hearts broken, our feet stepped on, people telling us, "No, you can't do that!" But screw 'em. Do it anyway. Find a way. Make a way. Get out your machete and take down those weeds that block the path. I find this is my greatest goal this year: to live a life of bliss and magic. I'll still pay my bills, and pay the fucking IRS, and get my car fixed but I have made a promise to be extraordinary this year, to move in new ways and think in new ways, to cut out the bullshit and get to it already.

By God, I will get some pictures on here!

Dancing like mad

I've been feeling very content lately - ever since my last posting, really. I have discovered, or maybe rediscovered, the incredible healing that comes with dance, especially when it's a freeform, let loose, anything goes kind of dancing. This past sunday, I went to another ecstatic dance session and really let go. The music was pumping and the air was electric. At one point while jumping and swaying my hips and kicking my legs and dancing with the people around me, I smiled and the smile came from deep within my heart. I felt truly free and happy and connected to everyone around me. It felt so good to just let go and give my body over to the music that pulsated throughout the room. And what was so great was that everyone else was doing a similar thing. We were all there in that big room with our shoes off, dancing like mad!

I've been thinking a lot lately that the beauty of being an adult is that we can do all the things we wanted to do as kids but weren't able to do for some reason or another. Dance has always been one of these desires for me. And it's not as if I have a desire to be a professional dancer or anything like that. It's more that I feel so alive and vibrant when I'm dancing. It's an essential form of self-expression for me. Everything about it is exciting - the movement, the music, the sweat and blisters, the people around me. It's electric! Just thinking about it makes me yearn for the next time I can let go and dance (which, fortunately, is tomorrow night!)

I am devoting this year to myself. I am planning on doing all those things that I've been wanting to do for a long time but keep putting off. And if I don't do them this year, I am at least planning for them. Here's one of the things on this list: returning to Italy for a dance workshop and also to officially learn Italian.

So, what's on your list?

A Brief Encounter with Ecstasy

20Jan08

Today I went dancing. In a sweaty whirlwind, I jumped and jived, swung my arms and spun, hurling myself this way and that. There is a place down the road where every Sunday, people gather at “ecstatic dance.” There is no speaking, only movement and music.

I needed to get out of my head and to just move. Even while moving, I caught myself thinking about how I looked. Or maybe there was someone across the room that I wanted to tangle with but was too shy and briefly berated myself for this shortcoming. Nevertheless, the music pumped on and I found myself, for the most part, completely wrapped up in sound. It felt beyond good to reconnect with a part of myself that has been calling for my attention. It’s the more animalistic part, the sensual, artistic, wild part. I recently read my horoscope and felt that it was particularly poignant. I’m not one to read horoscopes for any reason other than inspiration. This one went:

“A few months ago I went to a costume party on the Cruise Ship Ecstatic, which was docked in San Francisco Bay. The theme was ‘The Ecstatic Muse: What is the future of your own turn-on?’ I recommend you make that your meditation in the coming weeks, Libra. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you’re overdue for a rigorous inventory of your approach to creating rapture, bliss and joy. If in the course of your investigations you find you’ve been neglecting this essential aspect of your physical and mental health, take dramatic steps to upgrade your zeal. It’s time to get more aggressive about feeling excited.”

May this message speak to anyone who feels they need a good dose of ecstasy in their lives in whatever form. For me, I crave closeness with kindred spirits. Today was a good beginning. I reconnected with some people who I haven’t seen in awhile and who I really like. More than that, I reconnected with a very soulful part of myself. I hope to continue nurturing this relationship. It’s one that’s gone untended for a long while now – too long. I intend to be my own lover now since I’m in need of rediscovering myself and all those hidden passages that have grown over with weeds. It’s time to start some metaphorical gardens.

Living ecstatically, I have much to say on the subject. To be pursued next time.

The Green-ness of things

19Jan08

Today, Joe will dig holes and I will fill those holes with soil in preparation for tree planting. This is an ongoing project as we have many holes to dig and fill.

There’s something magical about planting something and watching it grow. Perhaps it’s the witnessing of life that is so awe-inspiring. Or maybe it’s because we’ve had some role in this perpetuation of life. Or maybe it’s just the satisfaction that comes after a long day of blood, sweat and tears. In any case, no matter how many self-doubts and questions I may have at the start of a good work day, once I tend to the soil, all doubts seem to fade into the background.

Yesterday we visited Volcanoes National Park and hiked down into what was once a crater brimming with lava. The fresh lava has long since dried up and blackened over but still, plumes of steam erupt from the many cracks and fissures. We sat for awhile by one of the bigger plumes of steam and had quite a steam bath. I can’t help but compare the steam with the breath of some wild animal. The way it ebbs and flows from the fissures and the slightly musky aroma makes me wonder if there isn’t some giant dragon curled deep within the earth sleeping soundly and breathing heavily, bathing us all in its heady breath.

Before heading to the park yesterday, we stopped at a place which was once known as Steam Vent Inn, a rather innocuous name. It has since been sold and bought by someone else who has given it an absurdly long name which I care not to remember. In a recent local newspaper, this “spa” was written up as having natural warm ponds and steam rooms, all heated by geothermal activity. Sounded too interesting to pass up. At the door of the main house, we were greeted by a woman who then led us to the owner. He had a very pleasant face, thick eyebrows and a kind smile. We got talking and it turns out that his place is home to a ministry of sorts. Without going into too much detail over the exact content of his ministry, I felt my heart sink the more he spoke. This man had a beautiful place, no doubt, and put quite a bit of work into making it wonderful. But speaking with him reminded me of how much we all live in our own fantasy worlds, some more than others. He spoke of prophecy from the bible and how he is planning on building a temple in honor of King David and that by fulfilling this prophecy, the world will be set straight. He talked of water and nature and seeing fetuses and umbilical cords in the water. And that, wow, space is not a void after all but filled with water. I found myself wondering why it is that people such as himself find it so necessary to make up such elaborate stories rather than enjoying nature as it is? Nature, itself, is enough, isn’t it? Nature is filled with magic and wonder and its own stories. There’s no need for elaboration.

I left feeling sad. Maybe I was being too self-righteous. Maybe he wasn’t missing the point, as I saw it. But I don’t think so. It’s as if this life and these moments aren’t enough for some of us. We have to make up these grand stories about ourselves and our purpose here on this planet. I do it too. We all do it in some way or another. But nature reminds us all the time that while we are intimately connected to everything, our individual lives really don’t matter all that much in the end. This is not a morbid thought, in my mind. If anything, this thought frees us from our ego-driven realities and allows us to really explore and wonder as well as wander – to live a life filled with insight. Or maybe to live a life of absurdity since the world is so chaotic anyway. While walking along a forest path in the park, Joe and I were stopped by fellow visitors and they asked us to take their picture with the steam vents in the background. Later, I mused, “Wouldn’t it have been funny if we had asked them if they would take a picture of us with their camera?” Aren’t we part of the backdrop as well? To do something just because it’s absurdly funny is somehow so liberating. It shakes things up – reorganizes the way we think and the way we do things. Maybe life shouldn’t be so ordered. Maybe that’s how we get stuck. We follow the same routine day after day – the same route to work, the same lunchtime meal, the same people, everything the same.

Routine is comfortable, I admit it. I find comfort in knowing what to expect. Nevertheless, I am finding more and more that too much comfort equals a kind of death. Stagnation sets in. I want to be more like the hot breath of the earth, ebbing and flowing, moving when I want, pooling when something entices me. It’s to nature I look when I need help since nature is neutral and dances round and round with the cycle of life and death. It doesn’t care. It does its thing and knows what it is and why its here. The humpback whales know when it’s time to leave Alaska and make their way to these islands to give birth. Somehow we’ve snuck out the back door and taken ourselves out of this intelligent loop. I’d like to somehow find my way back to this knowing.

Insight

Krishnamurti once said, “…a mind that has insight and acts from that without drawing a conclusion is in the movement of continuous, constant insight…this constant insight without a formula, a conclusion that puts an end to that insight, is creative action…” Imagine living from a place of constant insight and creative action, never concluding anything and therefore, never setting limitations on one’s life. Sounds impossible, right? How do we live without making a conclusion about anything? We are constantly making conclusions about things. “I am making this much money, therefore, I am able to do this…” End of the sentence. Period. No further thought required. We base our lives on conclusions about ourselves and those around us. But, imagine for a moment if we stopped doing this. What would that even look like? What is a life filled with creative action based on endless insight?

Thought is not the same as insight. Insight is like breath: inspiring, clear, fluid, limitless and timeless. Thought has ramifications and goes round and around yet goes nowhere sometimes. “I’m stuck in my head.” But insight is like a glimmer of gold, a sudden ray of clarity from which the potential of new life may spring up. It is fresh and green, like the fragile unfurling of a new fern. It can be so easily lost or trampled down amongst the myriad of thought. Or it can simply not be taken seriously.

How do we make the transition from thought to pure insight? I leave you this question since I have not yet answered it myself…

I don't want to grow up

It's an overcast day here on the Big Island, the kind that's got me thinking about growing up for some reason. I decided long ago that I don't want to officially grow up though I know that some growing up is necessary. Today, I felt way too grown up because today I dealt with that big, bad entity otherwise known as the IRS. Filling out and poring over form after stupid redundant form made me wonder many things.

First and foremost, I wonder how to navigate through the mundaneness of life without losing our sense of magic. Life is magical, no doubt. But it's also quite ordinary. And today, well, was very ordinary and filled with downright drudgery. Even now, as I write, my head feels filled with the fog that comes with thinking too much. Thinking, thinking, I'm always thinking. I'm obsessed lately with the fact that I'm single and not enjoying it one bit. I thought I would. I really did. But I'm not. I don't like waking up and being the only one in bed. I find myself singing the lines of "Nothing Compares." "Since you've been gone I can do whatever I want...I can put my arms around every boy I see....They only remind me of you." And it's all true in a way. Life doesn't seem to matter so much when there's no one there to share it, to share just in the mundaneness of it all. When I am with someone, the mundaneness somehow doesn't seem so bad. But being single, it turns to mere drudgery. And it doesn't matter that I can do whatever I want since without someone I love to consult with, I can't seem to come to a decision about anything.

And so, my head swims with way too much thinking of late. The same old questions, the same tired worn-out responses. What does it take to re-wire our brains so that we can create new pathways of thought? I want to make a new map, I want to trek out into new territory, someplace fresh and that smells green. And I want to do it with someone. I don't think we're meant to be alone in this life. I think we're meant to be tribal. We're meant to snuggle in big groups and to wrap ourselves around one another when life is just too damn tough.

I remember hearing once that when you leave home, you can never go back. This feels more true to me now than ever. The problem is that the yearning for home never goes away. For me, it only increases with the passing of each year. The problem is that while home for me now is more of a metaphor, I still long for the physical place. In my mind, I imagine a place where everyone I love is gathered. Unfortunately, in such a fragmented world, we only have fragmented tribes. Friends and family are scattered across the globe. I am in the middle of a damn ocean, separated by thousands of miles of water from people I love.

How do I close the gap? On this cloudy, leaf-blown day, I wonder how to find home if it is, indeed, a metaphor. Maybe I hope to find it in one person. I have felt it in the past, wrapped up safe in a lover's arms. The feeling never lasts long enough and the relationships have ended.

Now, I feel like a big toad in a big puddle, sitting like a big lump. Or a car with a flat tire stuck in a muddy rut in the rain, or a sailboat with ripped sails sitting in the doldrums. I have the ability to move but I can't. And time just keeps pressing on. I admit it. I'm stuck. There, I said it. "Just like a rolling stone...no direction home..."

A Poem

On this day
An adventure is born
From the depths
You could say
It breathes in the night
And when you are asleep
It breathes you, in fact
From those recesses of your being
You try to forget
It rages through your belly
Like a wildfire
In a desert storm

This morning
There was a dead bird at my window
Its chirping sibling was close by
And the mother too
The one pushed from the nest perhaps
So the other could live
We all must leave something behind in this world
A little piece of ourselves here and there
The question is what to do
With the remains

Is it fate or our own hands
That guides us through the night?
I used to believe in the mystery
Seems my hands are so small
As beautiful as they are
But I am old now
The spark lies shallowly buried
Under the soot and ash
Of lost love
It will take all the breath in my body
And more
To clear away
The debris
I am counting
On something bigger now
To lead me through
These hours of doubt
It is the intersection of heaven and earth
That I seek

On this journey,
Though many have traveled the path
I am alone

And the phoenix rises...

This is my very first blog posting. Sharing my writing is something I've wanted to do for a long time. There seems to be no better time than the beginnings of a new year to do just that...begin.



I've been thinking a lot about beginnings lately and how they are so connected to endings, deaths, loss. At the tail end of all of these things is new life. I'm thinking for some reason now about the dendrites of neurons and how they look so much like roots. It is in the dendrites where magic happens - information dances electrically from one neuron to another through these dendritic passages. This must happen millions of times over throughout the day. We are constantly given new information to process. What if, like actual roots, we could be nourished by this information, washed clean each time, and with that, we would re-invent ourselves over and over again?



I'm not sure where I'm going with all of this. Maybe I don't need to go anywhere with any of it. Maybe it's for you to think about, mull over, swish around in your mouth, tasting the sweetness of new thought. Pondering the possibilities of this life...



And what about the question of freedom? I've been thinking about that a lot lately too. What does it mean exactly to be free? Recently, I watched a movie called "Random Lunacy." It's about a man who calls himself Poppa Neutrino and his family. He's decided that the 9-5 life isn't for him so he travels with his family and plays music, joins a circus, builds a raft from trash and sails it across the Atlantic Ocean. He is vigilant about being free. His life is one grand adventure. He shirks the ordinary and embraces extremism. It got me thinking about my own life and what freedom looks like for me. What does it look like for you? What's the taste, sound and feel?

I'm a little concerned these days that people aren't thinking enough about personal freedom. And I'm not talking about the freedom to buy, to consume, to ravage everything in our path which humans seem to have gotten a little too good at. I'm talking about freedom of the mind and freedom of the body, though I don't think the two are as separate as we think. I think they are one and the same, really. But that's a different conversation.

I was walking to my studio office and saw a Hummer in the parking lot. I wanted to kick it and yell at the person for being such a moron and driving something that, in my mind, epitomizes human stupidity. It's amazing that one car could elicit so much hatred in my heart. Freedom seems to have gotten warped, perverted. Car companies advertise freedom as being able to drive this monstrosity across wild lands, taking it wherever one's little heart desires. But at what cost? And isn't the cost greater than the benefit? It's as if it's not until we all have a pile of shit sitting in our own living rooms that we will actually slap our hands to our foreheads and declare, "Wow, we're really making a mess of things! Maybe we should reconsider our ways..."

And what about me? I'm talking a lot about other people, I know. I tend to do that sometimes. I'd like to live a little more like Poppa Neutrino. I like his idea that we can't possess anything. Nothing is really "ours." And yet, we seem to really like the idea of ownership. I, myself, "own" some land and a little cabin and some clothes and various other things. I like to think it's all mine for keeps until I decide otherwise. But, really, that's not the case. I did own two dogs. They're both dead. Things die and fall away. Death is mostly beyond our control. Maybe we can prolong it but we can't stop it. Relationships die too, even if we struggle over and over in endless ways to breathe life into them. I tried that too. It didn't work. "My lover is gone now..." That must be some sad song somewhere. Ella, maybe?

And so, after life comes death comes life again. Round and round, the story goes...what is your story?