As he said.

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. [Howard Thurman]

I chose it.

Last night, I realized I found my religion. What a fabulous revelation! In a dimly-lit room, with music playing, surrounded by converts and newcomers, candles burning in the fireplace, I was struck: This is the reassurance I have been looking for. my god exists between myself, the student, and my many teachers. Moving, stretching, lifting, bending, touching and breathing with guidance, I was, for a long moment, enmeshed in the love present in the room. I have been practicing this yoga, and searching for a method to internal peace. The two came together last night, as I practiced my method, and looked toward the future with gratitude, and readiness.

Meditate

Early morning, facing the window, the room starts from dark and slowly fills with late. Squiggled up on my pink flying carpet, I settle down and chant. And my blood continues to flow, but I can feel it; the pulse is clear throughout my entire body: my back, my chest, my legs, my entire head is full of pulsing life. I recede down and in and down and in and in and in and into myself, and let my shell pulse, keeping me safe and warm.

Eat, Love, Pray #4

The child is taught from the earliest consciousness that she has these four brothers with her in the world wherever she goes, and that they will always look after her. The brothers inhabit the four virtues a person needs in order to be safe and happy in life: intelligence, friendship, strength and (I love this one) poetry. The brothers can be called upon in any critical situation for rescue and assistance. When you die, your four spirit brothers collect your soul and bring you to heaven.

Eat, Love, Pray #3

Look for God, suggests my Guru. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.

Eat, Pray, Love #2

Om Namah Shivaya.

I honor the divinity that resides within me.

Eat, Pray, Love #1

"To devote yourself to the creation and enjoyment of beauty, then, can be a serious business--not always necessarily a means of escaping reality, but sometimes a means of holding on to the real when everything else is flaking away into...rhetoric and plot...You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

Llegó la nieve

Y doy gracias. Algodón se cae del cielo,
y doy gracias.

Gracias.

whispies

Sometimes I get little glimpses of my future and my dreams and the place where I imagine they converge, and I get a sense of peace, and I hope I can pull this off.

scope #4

Try this meditation: Imagine that you are both the wood and the fire that consumes the wood. When you focus your awareness on the part of you that is the wood, you hurt; it's painful to feel your sense of solidity disintegrating. But as you shift your attention to the part of you that is the fire, you exult in the wild joy of liberation and power.

It may be tempting to visualize yourself more as the fire than the wood. But if you'd like to understand life's blessings in their fullness, you've got to be both wood and fire simultaneously.

like glue on glue

"You have to stop being so negative, or else all the negativity will just come and stick to you."

Remove the blindfold, please.

Somewhere in this world,
there is a treasure
that has no value
to anyone but you,
and a secret
that is meaningless
to everyone except you,
and a frontier
that possesses a revelation
only you know how to exploit.

Go in search of those things.

scope #3

...please at least try to induce a lucid dream of yourself crawling along the inside of the vault in the Sistine Chapel, or hauling your luggage across the underside of a cloud, or gliding as slowly as a sloth out to the end of a big limb on an oak tree. You need action that's simultaneously high up and reversed. You've got to be grounded yet rebellious as you soar. Or you need to defy gravity as you take baby steps. Or something like that.

in & out.

Stay with your breath.

Don't let your mind wander or twist or stumble forward; rein it in, hold it steady, stay with your breath.

Don't let your thoughts linger on any one topic, concern or issue; move forward, purposefully, stay with your breath.

Breath in deeply; exhale fully; acknowledge that third point, between the inhale and release, when the gears switch and your internal wind changes direction.

Breath is Life; the first action at birth, the last before we expire. Enjoy the luxury of breathing.

<---- )( ---->

That's me in the middle. Today I practiced feeling torn, and being okay with it. That is, just feeling what it felt like to not know and be unsure about the right answer. It is much more natural to fret and fret about a situation, because at least I feel like I'm DOING something. But it is, admittedly, a lot easier to simply do nothing, at least about my emotions, for the moment. Instead, I imagined my (hypothetical) insides: two swaths of cloth-ish something twisted and twisted around a pole, their ends pulled out in opposite directions, constricting my thought processes and stomach, and causing a lot of pain. So, I just stopped looking for the next thought, instead directing my gaze inward, literally imagined my "insides," noticed that I was unsure of and in conflict with myself, and said "that's ok." Time will pass and the answers will present themselves as they are meant to do. MUCH less stressful.

Scope #2

In Buddhist legend, the udumbara is a rare flower that blossoms unexpectedly every few millennia. It portends the imminent arrival of a miraculous breakthrough, as it did when it appeared near a lake at the foot of the Himalayas before the birth of Buddha. Many people in Fremont, California, believe they recently saw the udumbara blooming on an oleander tree, its threadlike stalks erupting with tiny white blooms. Was it real? Alas, no scientists were on hand to confer the blessing of authentication. But that doesn't matter for my purpose, which is to let you know that you'll soon have a close brush with the equivalent of an udumbara. Be alert. Don't be so lost in your fantasies that you're blind to the fantastic omen that's right in front of you. You've got to actually see it in order to be ready for the wondrous event it foreshadows.

Slow days:

"There is a bowl of flowers in your heart"

scope #1:

...you've never had a better chance to unify your divided mind than you have now; you will continue to be the beneficiary of unprecedented help from cosmic forces whenever you make concentrated efforts to coordinate your diverse desires. I urge you to invoke all your ingenuity as you seek out the magic that will make you a virtuoso of variety.

The One-Two Funk

How do you get uP
when you're feeling a little Low Down?

Not
S
O
o
o

L
O
w
,
but low.

This is no fun. My swirling while my brain stays put. Questions and questions and questions fill me up and I have no answers to let them out. Decisions have to take the place of answers, for now. And that's not so easy, either. Blech.

Dad as Green

I always thought of my Dad as green. Sometimes dark blue, but usually deep green. He's not a minty guy, or a parsley man. British racing green moves a bit too fast for him, and olive, though attractive, is too smooth. He's a tortoise shell green: the pace is perfect, the texture quite weathered, the hues marble-y mixed, and with a wink he retreats into the world he carries on his shoulders.

Laughing Pistachio Reds

Distinct from the blues,
I remember Babe laughing with
pistachio reds. Or with laughing
pistachio reds, as they are known.

Champagne-painted fingertips
coated in a fine scarlet dust,
quickly sifting the shells
from the nuts, if you know
what I mean (wink. She

was never one to tolerate nuts).
Her laughter floated above her head
while the action was low in the bowl,
on the table, crimson powder wafting.

Unfortunately, I never liked pistachios,
red or otherwise. We shared hard-boiled eggs.

My dad told me...

"Do not be afraid."

yoga

"the cessation of whirling and twirling of thought, to reveal who we really are"

Lens Cap

I carry a camera
to get a new perspective on life,
although mostly I leave the lens capped,
just looking.

Tomorrow I'll take out the camera,
and take advantage
of my new vantage.

two full glasses of sea

It had been quite a trip, technically speaking.
It was a phenomenal journey, emotionally speaking.
An exhausting effort, mentally speaking.
And rather taxing, physically speaking.

But we arrived, at night, to an empty house
with a note that said "fire, beach, come."
We found two wine glasses and managed
to fit a whole bottle in them.

We sloshed it down to shore, by foot,
by rope,
by stairs
and steps, and then
Oh my god--

It was endless, and open,
and pulsating and dark:
the ocean, the sea at night.

It didn't beckon; it commanded
awe, respect, humility.
It pulled and pushed and flirted with the moon,
and invited us in.

But we had a goal: fire, beach, come.
And in the distance, a signal, a leaping, red port of call.
So we walked, not straight, but in zigs and zags,
drawn to the water, drawn to the fire, back and forth,
laughing and sipping away.

That must be what religious revelation feels like:
You have commanded, I am yours, what relief.

sun-dried

That's how I like my Augusts. Not burning or melting, not sweltering, oozing, just sun-dried. A little something sweet and wrinkly to keep things fresh.

Quiet Cakes

They're not silent, mind you,
but quiet for monstrous cakes.
Folded to my left (the preferred side
for folding), I let my drowsy book
droop, and focus beyond my
open window.

Different shades of darkness,
in stripes from earth to sky. I hear the barge
Bellow, low down in the night. One long, two
short, around the bend it's coming...
And like a painting escaped from canvas
it glides across my window.

Stack upon stack of white light candles,
twinkling in the black, waiting for a
happy chorus to sing. It's a veritable gateaux,
pastel, torta, slinking through my portrait.

Around the bend,
one more trumpet,
a last wink,
and good night.

Cracked open

Very slowly, I wrapped my uncle's van
around a tree.
With only a slight creak, the door
caved in, and I frantically
wiped the scratches with my tears.

Upon my confession, he chuckled, and looked away.
Well, not away, but at his sick wife.
And waved me off with a smile; Don't worry.

Wife's got more than scratches and the van
has no expected date of expiration. It runs fine;
her, not so well.

And my perspective shifted to match
his own.
___________________________
I saw her dying, a wrinkly left-over
peel of a person. In a tip-toe we watched
her slip away from us, suspended between
Just go, and Please stay.
__________________________
I heard in the hospital he told her it was
okay, that she could stop fighting. Through tears,
reluctant permission.
___________________________
Sitting in a quiet late-afternoon kitchen
with my hands busy, I saw him break open.
He cracked and fell onto my father, a wet basket
of desperation, and splintered into pieces in front of me.
My father said, That's what happens when you love
someone so much.

I went to water my face somewhere else,
and thought What a terrible risk.

Lesson 2.

Wherever you are right now, physically, emotionally, psychologically, is exactly where you are supposed to be.

10th Street, NW, Washington DC

soldados patos

(Eastern Market, Washington DC)

Lesson 1.

Tolerance of uncertainty.

Sometimes, I just know.
Like bungee jumping; a little hesitation, but once I'm
suited up, I'm cucumber-cool, and the jump is clear and easy.

Or tattooing; I worryworryworry up to that
phone call, appointment made. And then I'm
cucumber-cool, free and easy.

So maybe all big decisions are just a matter of the
first step, the grit-your teeth, the get-it-over-with.
And then all big decisions become the right ones, because you
made it, you took it.
And it's yours.

Home (?)

A nice petit villa
on the Mediterranean sea.

Simple food, lots of sun,
saltwater, sleek, cool floors.

Loud people, loud music,
a steady job (something light),

carefree.

Green Pants

They asked me if I wanted anything of hers,
and I replied: her green pants.
I saw her in them, before she withered and twisted away.
She was in my father's kitchen, and she was
glowing. Ready to battle, smooth as always,
a niece's dream.

But her hill went up, and she went down.
All the way, until it was over. And I lost
the first person I was ever in love with.
I mean really smitten with, enamored by,
a late-night brownie-baking grace.
And I lost the other people who were in
love with her, they withered too, but remained.

But anyway, they asked me if I wanted anything of hers.
And I said Yes, please. Those green pants. Because
I thought they might make me glow, like she did.

For some reason, no one could find them. So I'm here
looking for other ways to find her glow.

Another Perspective.

When life is not perfect but good.
No.
When life is good enough to be perfect.
No.
When good is perfect enough to be life.
No again.
When life is just fine, and for me, it's perfect.
Almost.
When my life, just as it is, is perfect.

(The hard part is making that stick).

H.K.G.

I come from the HKG school of coping.
I am only recently enrolled, but let me tell you all,
it has been a revelatory experience.

The methodology is--and pay attention here,
because it was brand new to me and if you don't squint
you may have to review later--the methodology is:

When you feel like crap, be nice to yourself.

There it is! That's it! It's a phenomenal course of study,
and may not be intuitive, which is why it takes practice.
Some options are:

ice cream, toenail polish, macaroni and cheese (preferably Velveeta),
naps, a trip to the library, caramel macchiatos, wine,
great chocolate (the milk variety is really perfect for this),
new underwear, pajamas, hamburgers, movies.

I will forever be a student of HKG. Let me give deep, deep thanks:

Thanks.

Boots made for Swimming

My dad was saying
(while I was crying, and he was drinking):

I was out of the boat, in the water, and my boots were heavy.
And I was sinking down
and sinking down
and sinking down
and thinking, all the way down,
maybe this is the right answer.

Maybe things will be better
inside this rocky river
with the lures and hooks and the fishes.
Maybe my tackle box will follow me down
and I won't have to go back up. Ever.

And it was dark, he said (or maybe I just thought he did; you know
how memory can be). And that was almost the end, he said,
sinking down and thinking down in heavy fisherman's boots.
And then I thought of you.

And I swam up, with all the force I had,
I swam up.

Photographic Memory

The thing about photographs is:
Sometimes when you look, you remember things
that were never really in your memory at all.

I guess that's the thing about memory, really.
It's infinitely creative.

Like that one photograph bursting with balloons,
taken at a party in my father's office. In the midst of the rubbery celebration
my small face peeks out, and a striped arm, and a pink moccassin.

I saw that photo and now I can remember the moment,
being short, and thrilled, in a sea of balloons. I had never
remembered it before.

I guess that's the thing about memory, really.
It's infinitely creative.

It's a comforting thought; when I don't have the time,
or the money, or the patience, to do marvelous things,
I can always just remember

that I did.

Loose change

Pennies



Pennies don't fall from heaven.
Or whatever it is that people say.
They're right there on my mother's bedroom floor,

With nickels and quarters and dimes
that jingle-jangle-rattled when they fell from her pockets
and hit the wood.

Another sign that mom is home:
jingle-jangle-rattling of pennies as she removes the (uniform) blues of work
and gets comfortable.

I see them from low down
in my memory, from the floor, although my memory forgot
why I was there.

And the perfect complement to pizzicato coins:
my mother's steady breathing from her faux slumber, one eye open,
in bed.

Almost forgot the christening

With a favorite poem:

Ramón Budiño

i.
Pausa

De vez en cuando hay que hacer
una pausa

contemplarse a sí mismo
sin la fruición cotidiana

examinar el pasado
rubro por rubro
etapa por etapa
baldosa por baldosa

y no llorarse las mentiras
sino cantarse las verdades.

[Mario Benedetti]

Grass is Greener Syndrome

I'm working on it; it's a long, long road to recovery. In the meantime: summer is delicious as juicy, ripe tomatoes and sea salt; pesto (home-made) makes prosciutto even better; I'd like to go to Europe.

Eastern Market, circa 2005!