tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44035270712363648032024-03-13T11:55:30.623+05:30on(e) loveWe appear as we are: individuals, independent, strong, solitary. But like these Aspens we are intrinsically connected, rooted in our strength in numbers, in our shared experiences, tapping inspiration from one source, one love.as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-68562759006111591082022-08-09T06:08:00.001+05:302022-08-09T06:12:45.763+05:30Hello, I'm back<p>So, it's been five years since my last post. Whaaaaahhhhtttt? FIVE YEARS! I'm sitting here, feeling the awkwardness of too long a separation between me and this particular white space. And, also, with you, whoever you are, still reading this blog. The cursor is blinking at me, daring me to say something, anything, to break the silence...</p><p>Where do I begin? How do I start to fill in the spaces? Who am I now after all these years? And why does it feel like coming back here is a matter of life and death? </p><p>This blog was my companion whilst I contemplated about Love, searched for Love and tasted big Universal Love across multiple continents. And yet, when I seemed to have found "It," I stopped writing... </p><p>At the time of my last blog posts, I had met someone. I got engaged and then married. I got pregnant and miscarried, I got pregnant again and now I have a beautiful two-year old. I still live in Egypt. I continue to teach a yoga program here. I embraced everything that I had wanted deeply but was afraid to commit to. I made a life here, I dove into the details. I became absorbed in the day-to-day--and days are particularly long with a morning yoga program and a self practice and a toddler. But I didn't think so much of the other parts of my life would fade into the gray.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZL_DaaJEFl0GhKmeaWFjb3kUFreZaN8XWl6M4OJC5x2ZSpfgQlzOYTJZbdExXcmeicn3pCZtXuptDpmuk6eObfYIXlrXsd1Fh0QkcNr60yimEIgshl5P0OozZ1ROrIaL2lAIUQhfjyFLBYU3uaN5Hr5xVkesLGUT9Nexn7MrSt469VIMGNPmaOgwy" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="769" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZL_DaaJEFl0GhKmeaWFjb3kUFreZaN8XWl6M4OJC5x2ZSpfgQlzOYTJZbdExXcmeicn3pCZtXuptDpmuk6eObfYIXlrXsd1Fh0QkcNr60yimEIgshl5P0OozZ1ROrIaL2lAIUQhfjyFLBYU3uaN5Hr5xVkesLGUT9Nexn7MrSt469VIMGNPmaOgwy=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div>I wish I had taken the time to write, especially about some of these remarkable landmarks in my life as they happened. I am content to have simply lived them, exhausted enough by the fullness of putting down roots and having a family. I have to admit, however, something was lost without this mode of reflection, particularly here where I shared with as much honestly and vulnerability as I could muster. And I wonder whether I could have processed all the blessings and challenges better had I somehow scraped the energy and time to write about them. <p></p><p>Anyhow, I'm back. Or doing my best to come back to this place of self-reflection and sharing, of walking a path of love--sometimes its a bed of sweet smelling rose petals, sometimes its just pure thorniness--and all that entails. And I tell myself that its ok, if no one reads this. It is enough to get the words out. But if you're here, if you're with me, I so appreciate it, it will really be helpful because its a path better shared than trod alone. </p>as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-87862012697285520172017-08-12T17:17:00.000+05:302017-08-27T01:35:38.451+05:30the kiss<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #454545;">When I was still a girl (a phase of life, in truth, that lasted an extraordinary long amount of time), I loved Gustav Klimt's iconic painting of two lovers. One year, it was the cover of one of my journals. Another year, a planner. I carried a postcard of it among other favorite art, which I blue tacked on my university dormitory wall, later it traveled with me abroad as an exchange student, then across the world to the Philippines, and still sits among the things I have there. My college roommate Kiní presented me with a 1000-piece puzzle of it, which took over our dining room table in Berkeley over the course of one semester. When it was done, I framed it and hung it on the wall. </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No painting moved me as much as The Kiss. It stirred in me something, reminded me of something I deeply desired. The colors and shapes, the two golden beings wrapped in each other's embrace came to mean, for me, the true meaning of love. Love was finding oneself in another, it was to surrender completely, to be lost in the ecstasy of being together. I was so full of such ideas about love; I wanted to "fall in love," to meet "the one." I found myself constantly preparing myself, constantly looking for my "soul mate." </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A few years ago, when I decided it was high time to be less a girl and more a woman--I was past the age of 30, at this point, and still identified with being the former--I started to examine these deeply ingrained ideas of love. I was a romantic, but this had come with some pitfalls. There would always be magical Kiss-like moments, those potent exchanges where time seems to stop and everything turns shimmery and golden. I remember one such moment, walking up one of the vistas near Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles with my first true love, when he stopped me suddenly, asked me to look around as he held my hand and said, as he looked deeply into my eyes, "I want us to remember this moment." Then we kissed. It was wonderful and, of course, I remember it. But where was he now? What of that love, ingrained in my memory but which passed all too quickly. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Coming to Vienna, the home city of painter Gustav Klimpt meant making a visit to Belvedere Palace where the original painting is a part of the permanent collection. I knew I had to see it. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To stand before a painting I had loved for nearly three whole decades since the moment I first saw it is a feeling I will never be able to properly express. So much is lost when a painting is reproduced on a flat surface, what is three dimensional becomes compressed into two. The textures and colors, the scale, is never the same. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Seeing Picasso's "Guernica" or walking into Monet's actual garden in Giverny, were incredible art experiences that I'll never ever forget, but taking in the two lovers was deeply personal. I realized that no painting had been a part of my life like that, it reminded me of my youth, of my innocence, of my love stories and my patterns, and as my eyes traced Klimt's stroke marks I also recognized how much I had changed from that girl with all her funny and beautiful and somewhat convoluted ideas about love. The woman that stands before you now still believes in love but little desires to be lost in it, nor found in it either. Over the last few years, I have learned that love resides in me, no matter whether or not there is someone to enjoy, receive or witness it. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #454545;">As I looked on with a fresh perspective, I saw that the painting was also different from how I had first perceived it. I did not see the same reckless abandon, a woman absorbed into love. I could see, instead, the harmonious balance between the painter's symbols, the masculine </span></span></span><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">rectangular</span><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> shapes that make up the man's robes and the feminine circular shapes blooming in her gown. He holds her but does not contain her. She holds him lightly, but there is no clinging, no desperation. His strength and her softness</span><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #454545;"> </span><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">compliment each other, and through her and their union, golden love flows. It's subjective, of course, my reading of it, but this is how I experienced it over a week ago, standing in that gallery, mouth agape, eyes welling up with tears. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #454545;">I am grateful to experience my favorite painting, but also to feel it in a different way. It's wondrous how time and its opportunities and challenges have led me back to this work of art, just at this moment, just when my ideas about love are changing and growing--how a kiss can grow when we grow ourselves, how love expands when we ourselves expand. </span></span></span></div>
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as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-14417511885543759122017-07-24T01:29:00.002+05:302017-07-24T12:56:34.016+05:30the stuff we forget, the things we remember and the memory of healing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Since arriving here in Bucharest, I am astounded at how little I remember the city. Mostly, I recall the inside of Anahata, the former yoga space of my host, friend, and fellow-ashtangi Irene Zaarour, and the warmth of the students I met there; I remember her compact dog, the larger-than-life Durga; I remember sitting in the back seat of her car, watching the tree line along one of city's main avenues and noting the weight and gravity of the Palace of the Parliament, the massive government building constructed by Caucescu, as it popped into view. I remember more the great Carpathian mountainside, where we will go to tomorrow, the rock faces cutting into the skyline; to them, I had cried and confessed my sorrows, only they knew--I felt--the scope of my broken-heartedness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Then, I had felt like I was going through one of the toughest periods of my life. I was in a love story that was unraveling and instead of walking away like two reasonable adults, we stubbornly went on with our travel plans together. By the time we arrived in Romania, where my former partner was teaching, we were only half way through our summer itinerary and I was a quiet, open-wound, rather unsuccessfully trying to accept the whole situation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">These days, I remember feeling the feelings but I can't actually remember the feelings of the feelings themselves. Does that make sense? I can name them, still, of course. I got to know myself pretty well through them: attachment, disappointment, hurt pride, loss, rejection, and, most insidiously, the feeling of not being good enough, which rattled around my head through that whole summer, that whole relationship, a sad, howling ghost that clung to me--</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and to which I likewise desperately held on to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Generally, I am a feeling person, the kind that likes to get-up-close-and-personal with all my emotions. There are plenty of healthy ways to engage with one’s stories, usually with a fair amount of distance. Me, I like to cuddle with mine, winding myself around them, making it difficult, later on, to distinguish between myself and my storytelling, with each story usually a shadow of another, more entrenched, more complex than the one before. And so, I am surprised at my current lack of sentimentality. It’s been over a week now in Bucharest and there hasn’t been a trace of sadness or hurt or anger or any nostalgia to do with the past—and it’s kind of amazing! Is this what it means to really get over something? Is this what it’s like when one really lets go?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When I arrived, Irene and I were speaking about how we pretty much get what we ask for, pray for, manifest, whatever you call your mode or intention-making—that the universe, given this opportunity, is dead-set to accommodate. While it didn’t seem so at the time, I recognize how the summer of 2012 was among the first phases of a big purification. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Had I asked plainly for love, the whole thing might have turned out differently, I might not even have made it to Romania at all. What I <i>actually</i> wanted was to be more in my essence. I had expressed my willingness to separate myself from my stories, those pesky ideas that define me and yet aren’t me at all. In my experience, these are the kinds of requests that the universe often fast tracks. The moment you show any inclination for serious change, an unseen force pulls and pushes, facilitating the toppling down of walls, the breaking down of barriers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">These days, I am in awe and wonder at how time, change, and healing all come together. I realize how much I have used my writing in the past to process some heavy stuff, to help myself work out my own head and heart. Though there have been moments of quiet introspection or silences due to things being too much, too fresh (I didn't write about Romania the first time at all); so many things I've written have been about delving into my shadows or shining a much-needed light for myself. And I am slightly reveling in just being ok at present, there’s no drama to tease out, no demons to exercise, no old baggage to unpack. It’s a little odd and funny to get on this blog just to say: “hey, all’s well, not much to see here.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As I have not been so busy reliving the past, there has been much more space to be present. I feel that I will remember more of Bucharest this time because I was more <i>in</i> it than I was before. I will remember the soft textures of the morning light as it streams into Asociatia Ashtanga’s śala before the morning mysore. I will remember the week of <i>me </i>teaching here, the generosity of the community here who took time to be with me and to show me me the city. I will remember the mix of the new and old in the city streets, the side walk café’s, delicious cappuccinos, and crumbling monuments. I will remember four-legged Durga and now her little squat friend Sham too, and, of course, so many precious exchanges with Irene about life and yoga. Most of all, I think I will remember who I am now, and how much I have become what I was looking for, and that whatever pain or difficulties it took to get here, they don’t really matter anymore. What matters is that I am clearer, more aware, more straightforward, braver, more self-assured, and more myself than I’ve ever been.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Tomorrow, I return to the mountains; I look forward to sitting with them again, like old friends who I haven’t seen for a long time, but who are never far from my mind. This time I will tell them of my open-heartedness, how wonderful it all is, and also how scary it is in so many other ways. And like before, they will surely listen, quietly reminding me that even mountains </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p>change over time.</span></div>
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as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0Bucharest, Romania44.4267674 26.10253839999995844.0639659 25.457091399999957 44.789568900000006 26.747985399999958tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-58949838880233486162017-07-10T02:10:00.000+05:302017-07-10T02:40:34.124+05:30the passport<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0);">After nearly seven years of traveling pretty continuously--a journey that I started chronicling in this very blog--and priding myself on having the whole life-on-the-road thing down, my bag was stolen and with it my valid ID, including my passport, and most of my credit cards. With about 16 days before my departure date from Cairo, I hit a new level of pre-travel stress.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0);">I was bummed about the expense and, most of all, the inconvenience:</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0);"> the hours of dealing with local police, the US embassy, Philippine call centers to cancel and reorder credit cards which I had just recently activated, and chaotic Egyptian government offices to secure an entry stamp for a fresh US passport. I skipped practice and found myself irritable with those tasked to help me, I ran around the last couple of weeks in the hot Cairean summer using up all my stored-up yoga cool. I was upset and, then, upset about being upset.</span></span><br />
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<span class="" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I vacillated between being hard on myself for carelessly leaving my bag just lying around in an apartment and being spitefully angry at the thief who must've seen it through the open window while the flat was unattended.</span></div>
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<span class="" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ultimately, I was having difficulty with loosing control—and, I know I’m not alone with this being a biggie. I was pulled out of a safe and steady rhythm. I was out of my comfort zone--and hadn't been challenged in this way for a very long time. As much as I would love to be all Zen about it, I have not been blessed with that uncanny ability to relax into difficult situations, finding receptivity towards calm and peace loving solutions the way we might <i class="">expect</i> a good yogi to. The truth is situations like these put me on the defensive, my fists tightly closed, arms close to the body, ready to block any more punches.</span></div>
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<span class="" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Also, I was attached to the passport itself. It had been my companion, my gateway (eternally grateful for the ease of travel that comes with an American passport) and witness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Accidents and thefts, they are determined by so many factors. Still, I blamed myself for being so casual with such precious cargo, shouldn't I have known better? Haven't I been traveling for some time? The truth, however, is that since I'd arrived in Egypt at the end of last year, I wasn't exactly traveling <i class="">but</i> I wasn't settled either. I was in my own limbo, going from month to month with an idea of moving on but with little initiative to do so. Each month, students asked if it would be my last. Offers to teach elsewhere came and went, but I wasn't actually budging.</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0);"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #353535; line-height: normal;">Since packing up my life in the Philippines, I started to seriously travel in 2011. After my first Mysore trip, my life turned fluid. My lost passport, issued that same year, was a testament of it. I went where I was invited because the truth is I didn't know where to go myself. I only knew that I didn't feel right living where I was last living. But as to where I belonged, I didn't have the slightest clue. I felt like I was looking for a home but the more I traveled the more conceptual "home" became. When my father went to visit my sister in NY, I tagged along. When a boyfriend went to teach in Europe, I followed. Once the yoga school opened in Mysore, I would go there to study with my teacher. When it was time, I'd go home to the Philippines, usually when I was tired or broken-hearted, because, as it turns out, we cannot live in other people. And, when I started to teach, I went where I was asked, wherever there was work, wherever there were students. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0);">After some time of not having a home of my own, I started working on making peace with myself, so that I could be at home with myself--an amazing but difficult process. I even tried to put down ro</span><span class="" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0);">ots in the Bay Area during this time. By that point, it was already 2015 and I was travel weary, often getting sick while transitioning from one country to the next. Living in one place turned out to not be so easy for me, either. After the years of movement, I couldn't quite stomach the stillness. It put me in such close contact with my own loneliness, my longing, and my fears of failure that after only 8 months (the longest I'd been stationary in the last 7 years), I jumped right back into my comfort zone with absolute gusto: I packed my bags, freed myself up to go to Mysore and then spent the next year studying and teaching and wholeheartedly filling my passport with stamps.</span></span></div>
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<span class="" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is a part of me that grieves for the stolen passport with its worn cover and its bulk of extension pages. It chronicled my life, a collection of entry and exit stamps, it was a story of movement, adventure, discovery and healing—some of it sad, it’s true, but much of it incredibly soft and gracious. But I also recognize the symbolic significance of these fresh unmarked pages—that it is time for something different, to let go of those old stories, which I have been so attached to. I will most likely always be a traveler but I would like to identify less with <i class="">where</i> my life is lived and more with <i class="">how</i> I am living it. Sometimes, we need to loose who we believe ourselves to be in order to make room for who we are becoming, that way a new journey can begin.</span></div>
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<span class="" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A couple of weeks before loosing my passport, I decided I would return to Cairo at the end of the summer to continue to grow the program that I haphazardly started over a year ago, to also grow my relationships with the people I love there and, in tandem, to grow myself too. It's a mighty frightening thing for one so fluid to chose a clear and determined path, but it's definitely time.</span></div>
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<span class="" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As much as I would have liked to avoid the inconvenience of loosing my old passport, the new clean passport reminds me to not fall into old patterns, to not retreat into the allure of travel and adventure, that the most precious sights are to be found inside, and, that for me, right now, that means planting roots.</span></div>
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<span class="" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0);">So I go now, with my new passport, to satisfy my still-unwavering wanderlust and likewise my need for inspiration and learning. I travel now to teach, to visit with friends, to plug into the vibrant ashtanga community in Europe and at the end of the two months to see my teacher in his workshop in London. And then I will go back to my own life where I will work to find all those things (wanderlust, inspiration, learning) in the everyday interactions with my relations there and the places that I daily inhabit. I have heard that this is how it goes, when one returns home.</span></span><br />
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as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0Portugal39.399871999999988 -8.22445400000003726.500209999999988 -28.878751000000037 52.299533999999987 12.429842999999963tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-73849629996140540092016-01-29T17:13:00.001+05:302017-02-06T18:17:00.896+05:30ubud: creative medicine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">On my last day in Ubud, I planned to visit Pura Gunung Lebah, a temple I'd passed nearly every day as I shuffled between the village where I was staying and the heart of town. The temple seemed to call from its mysterious perch, on a small hill below the Campuhan Bridge, nestled in dense forest, where two rivers below meet. </span></div>
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Although I usually love playing tourist, particularly visiting old sacred sites whether they are temples, churches or mosques, I had put off the excursion as temple visits in Bali require donning the traditional temple clothes: Balinese sarong, a modest blouse adorned with local crafted lace, and a bright sash, wrapped around the waist. Just that extra little effort, not to mention the tropical warm climate, seemed to deter me from executing a plan of action, even though I had already borrowed the necessary traditional dress from my friend Clara with whom I was visiting.</div>
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Getting to the end of my three weeks in Ubud, I wanted to honor my time here by going to temple, giving thanks to the Balinese gods for their graciousness. </div>
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It had been a profoundly soft time of healing. Ubud is known for that, everywhere there seems to be some opportunity for healing--with raw or cooked plant-based cuisine, with treatments of varying degrees and depths, with the specialists from all over the world who peddle a variety of healing modalities, new and old, along with a slew of local healers, also of the traditional and non-traditional ilk. </div>
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It turns out that this particular temple site played a role in the settling of the area. Early settlers were drawn to this small hill where two rivers crossed, there they built a temple, 8th century thereabouts, <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">the forest surrounding was full of medicinal plants. "Ubad" means medicine, from which the name Ubud draws its origin. The energy of healing has been growing here ever since.</span></div>
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Having been through a beautiful and intense time of healing over the last year, I pretty much thought that my visit to Bali would be reconnecting with a dear friend/sister Clara. In my head, we were to have fun, she was going to show me her Bali, we had some work to discuss, but there was no healing, at present, to do. </div>
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The truth about purification is that there are levels upon levels of it. And true optimum health is a great harmony between the body, mind and heart. </div>
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What I've learned over the years of working towards a healthy equilibrium is that once I get through one level of healing or purification, I find that there is another deeper level to address, a deeper sense of wellness that now has the space to be established. </div>
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My friend, despite being of robust health, actually got Dengue fever during this time, and half of our time together centered around the house where we drank healthy fresh juices, ate good live food along with raw vegan ice cream and lounged around her couch, talking about<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> life. When her feverishness abated, we returned to creative exercises and exchanging ideas on our project. On our last day together she said that the illness had been a great lesson in accepting weakness, yet another phase of healing.</span></div>
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The great task of flushing something out means to also bring the things that lurk in darkness to light. This process is not so easy, most of the time it's uncomfortable, other times, it can be painful.</div>
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For me, this time was about <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">addressing my own creative demons. The one thing that I wanted to do ever since I was a young girl of 8 was to write. It can take a lifetime for someone to know what they want to be doing. I knew at age 8. The crazy and sad thing is that I did little to make anything of it. </span></div>
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To meet my friend now, decades later, beautifully derailed by various stages of life, to speak about collaborating, well, at first I was very excited. But during the height of her fever I felt a sort of paralysis, I was so overwhelmed, I didn't know where to begin. Our neat little project had grown into a bit of a monster. Some things still came easy but most of it was like climbing up a mountain, it was toilsome, I felt incredibly heavy. </div>
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Over the last year I had embarked on a journey in which I had to acknowledge that my inability to commit in the past, whether it was to one place, to one job, to the right conditions for a healthy relationship, had a lot to do with a fear of failure, I was afraid of not being good enough (an old issue that I have seriously had enough of and am very much done with, thank you very much). Although, I continued to long for these things, I seemed to be making decisions that allowed me to circumvent the possibility of failure, it was easier to avoid, rather than to face it all. </div>
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And so here I was, triggered, facing my oldest unfinished dream. It seemed to me I had been here before, my poems coming out of Berkeley, were publishable but I did not put the hard work in to getting more than a couple published. I had built a small reputation for being a lifestyle writer and a spoken work performer in Manila, but I never followed through. I kind of hated the publishing rat race and performing in public made me so nervous. To go deeper, I needed to put myself out there, but instead I found myself backing off, and in this way nothing ever happened, no failures but also no successes. Eventually, the "dream deferred", as Langston Hughes so aptly put it, exhausted me, I opted to not make a living as a writer anymore, I went into teaching and, eventually, teaching yoga. </div>
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In Ubud, I realized how I could continue to be fearful and inactive, but that I wouldn't be happy not doing anything about it either. The yoga practice has taught me so much about confronting fear, <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">that I don't </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">have to be so fearful of succeeding or of failing; </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">that I don't have to be so goal oriented. I just need to show up for myself day after day, that is enough. </span></div>
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The fear hasn't gone but I am less deterred by it. I intend to show up for myself, that to practice fully now includes making time to write everyday. </div>
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So on that last day, I wanted to thank Bali. I put on the temple clothes with the help of lovely Nyoman, Clara's housekeeper. I had to take demure little steps in the tightly wound crisp sarong, moving with some difficulty as I climbed down the steep steps that led from the bridge down to the river and then up to the temple. As I walked, I expressed quietly my gratefulness and prayers. I felt the sanctity of the place, how below the hubbub of modern day Ubud, life was largely unchanged, the forest continues to flourish, the river continues to flow, and the faithful continue to make their pilgrimages, offerings, and prayers, that healing the old fashioned way continues. </div>
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I arrived at the temple steps to find the gate shut and padlocked, which is odd for a temple that is supposed to be open 24 hours. I looked in, taking in the site, then turned around to look at the bridge above, the lush green all around. Everything looks so alive. </div>
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It didn't matter that I didn't get to go inside the temple. What mattered more was the going, I realized, not the actually getting there. </div>
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I do not know what this book will look like, when it will be completed, or whether it will even make it to print, what matters now is that I write, that I surrender to the creative process in the same way that I have done to my sadhana, to my practice. That I must try to do it without expectation, that I commit to it no matter whether I am feeling compelled to write or not, whether it is easy or hard, to accept that some days will feel better than others but to go on anyway because ultimately it makes me feel alive and happy. This is a new level of healing work for me, that to do and do again the thing that challenges me to grow and makes me feel full is mighty good medicine. </div>
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as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-71054567251773029402015-07-29T01:56:00.000+05:302015-07-29T02:47:20.121+05:30love of driftwood<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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How many times does it feel like we are wandering adrift in the sea, little knowing where the tides and currents are taking us? Occasionally we are washed onto unknowable shores, moored beside some other being, with whom we share this precious moment, a sliver of time, in which we find solace--and when we're really lucky, joy--in another's company. Perhaps exchanging a lot or very little, but feeling deeply comforted that another exists before the tide rises again, drawing us back into our solitary journey.<br />
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Meeting. Loving. Parting. Sometimes it is like this: so very transitory, precious in its brevity. I remind myself, there are so many kinds of love. Short as it is, it is complete. </div>
as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-3784047352097457132015-06-27T23:22:00.000+05:302015-06-27T23:27:33.534+05:30#lovewins<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Giant flag that flies over the Castro here in San Francisco. </td></tr>
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Love. This is what I write for. Though I have taken some time to deeply examine and experience love--quietly, privately, taking it in, rather than pulsing it out. I wake today with two incredibly strong sensations worth sharing on the topic of my obsession:</div>
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1. Joy. A pure, joyful sense of celebration. Today, I will walk down from my current digs here in San Francisco into the Castro, where I will celebrate with thousands and thousands of other joyful people of all sorts of creeds and sexual orientations the Supreme Court ruling yesterday, which legalized the marriage of same-sex couples in all the states. Not only is it Gay Pride weekend, but it's one of historical proportions--it's going to be an epic party! As the hashtag that has been popularized the last two days says, love wins!</div>
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2. The second sensation is harder to qualify. Yes, I feel hopeful and positive from yesterday's ruling. As I said above, I feel like celebrating. <i>But</i> I'm also kind of flabbergasted that we continue to live in a world where the legality of love is questionable. That prior to yesterday, it was illegal for two people of the same sex to bind their lives together in marriage in the great United States. That today, this continues to be an issue for same-sex couples in most parts of the world. Yes, entering into marriage is a legal contract. Thus, all tax-paying citizen deserves this right. </div>
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Moreover, love is love. It is transcendent; that two people could honestly love each other enough to want to marry, to spend their lives together, to take on each other's joys and fears and ills, to look into each other's eyes and allow that person to be a mirror into their souls--well, all I can say is this: that deserves our (meaning, human kind's) universal awe, respect, and support <i>period</i>. </div>
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as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-27580936385379165742014-12-22T12:49:00.003+05:302014-12-23T07:05:17.406+05:30one love, one god<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meditating at the minaret at Ibn Tulin Mosque in Cairo, Egypt.</td></tr>
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In Japan, I quietly walked up and down a <i>Shinto</i> mountain God barefoot, in thoughtful
meditation. In Egypt, I chanted with ecstasy and enthusiasm to Allah in a <i>Sufi</i> zikr. Last night I went to s<i>imbang gabi</i> ("evening mass", which is Christmas
tradition among the Catholics here in the Philippines). <o:p></o:p></div>
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As I sang wholeheartedly the familiar “<i>Kordero ng Diyos</i>”, “Lamb
of God”, I wondered whether my fellow churchgoers would consider me an infidel
for being so very liberal in the ways I choose to worship the Divine. I know
that I don’t see myself as such. Rather, I feel that along with the world
opening up the way it has over the years--with the yoga practice and the travel
that has magically come with it--so has my view of that which is absolute and
complete. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR6mI8BoXw-Y7v8liwoLO16aDUqtA0b9-15J44lRImk4pX3Qg8cfUpWjeFVVldK3ss-HdEx_-AfS6QHv0ibuQJ_GUjG0Mu7I9tav0n0Ln7fpz-xChd_EapfGnB-z22HxX8Wn9-81he1H4/s1600/IMG_5372.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR6mI8BoXw-Y7v8liwoLO16aDUqtA0b9-15J44lRImk4pX3Qg8cfUpWjeFVVldK3ss-HdEx_-AfS6QHv0ibuQJ_GUjG0Mu7I9tav0n0Ln7fpz-xChd_EapfGnB-z22HxX8Wn9-81he1H4/s1600/IMG_5372.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona.</td></tr>
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I find that wherever I go, true devotees have the same kind
of heart no matter what form, formlessness, or format they resonate with. And
the rest, well, we have the same struggles--the same struggles of lack, of faith,
of littleness and of separation. That somehow each version of God is a
reflection of the culture that seeks to understand it. And while there is
something to be said about how we create the God or Gods that we value, I
continue to believe that the Divine is Everywhere, Everything, call It what you
will, worship wherever it works for you. There is no limiting the unlimited,
there is no naming that which goes beyond words.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitCOxpo0Oh2YVedAvEgeV1S-HqbhTJkJlVDWzQBdOO7aY_ibMeIvS7xVZs34K2e_XSebuy4tfojb2VKUI6itOXrHIrc3xam1-DcvKDGX4XQSLnNDFeQ0QQCoi8uhV_-A2tyA89DBeIXtc/s1600/IMG_2828.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitCOxpo0Oh2YVedAvEgeV1S-HqbhTJkJlVDWzQBdOO7aY_ibMeIvS7xVZs34K2e_XSebuy4tfojb2VKUI6itOXrHIrc3xam1-DcvKDGX4XQSLnNDFeQ0QQCoi8uhV_-A2tyA89DBeIXtc/s1600/IMG_2828.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shinto moss shrine in Kyoto, Japan. </td></tr>
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In the New Year, I will be landing in India and there my
acts of devotion will transform into sun salutations, pujas, and mantras. I
will be bowing to a dynamic set of representations of the Divine, blue-faced
Gods, many-armed Goddesses, magical beasts. Moreover, I would like to be more
liberal, more open, I would like to make a practice of seeing the Divine in all
people, in all things. I’d like to love the people I find most difficult. I’d
like to look upon strangers as brothers and sisters. I’d like to treat the the land, the world we live in, the planet at large as sacred—because it really is. </div>
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One love, one God. <o:p></o:p></div>
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as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-14894718814458543522014-11-29T04:49:00.001+05:302015-01-04T22:28:45.939+05:30owning it<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Right now I am sitting in a beautiful borrowed apartment in Cairo. Over the last few years, I have often sat in the eclectic homes of other people, surrounded by other people's things, other people's lives, simply enjoying it, little comparing my own life to theirs--which I realize is a big shift.<br />
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I am content. And happy--happy in a way I don't think I have ever felt. </div>
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Truth is I have little property, mostly clothes and books and personal effects of sentimental value, some I carry with me, most are sitting in my family home in Manila, where I've spent the least amount of time in the last two years. I have a trunk in India, a collection of textiles and modest "India clothes" and a small but strange collection that includes a coffee maker, a salad spinner, a few bits and bobs that allow India to be home when I unpack them.</div>
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I don't have a plot of land or a space or a room all my own <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">but wherever I find myself these days, I feel at home because my heart is simply there. I sleep well, and I can sleep practically anywhere, sharing a bed, couch surfing, laying a yoga mat on a floor--this, more than contorting myself into a pretzel-like position makes me feel truly flexible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">I don't have a car or a bicycle, but I have my own two feet and the courage to purchase one way online plane tickets which piece together these dots accross the world map, which is really my path, my life. </span></div>
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I <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">do feel, more than ever, a strong sense of ownership. I own my life. I </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">own my own heart and soul and that has given me plenty of room to grow, to be at home and at peace almost anywhere this crazy life has taken me. </span></div>
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I own my principles, my good humor, my own yoga practice. I own my time, the hours I spend on the mat, how much I teach, how much I play; that the idea of fun and joy and responsibility exist simultaneously in so many <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">actions. I own my struggles and my failures, as well as the great victories that come when I surpass such difficulties. I find a deep satisfaction in the little things: taking the hours before practice to drink a coffee or a tea as I write, self-practicing, </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">attending talks, writing a blog post, spending time with friends and family, most of all, spending time with myself, singing to myself, cooking and feeding myself or walking myself down the road to do shopping or taking myself with my own two feet to work, taking that brief moment as I rest after an intense practice to simply say to myself, "hey, you, I'm still here, you are not alone, I love you deeply."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">I own my choices. I have decreased the tendency to blame others or the universe for any misfortune, doing my best to take responsibility for my own actions and my own reactions. I </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">choose where to go, where to work, what to eat (sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not so good, sometimes it's chocolate), I choose how to pray. I choose how to live. I </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">choose to be light and to be free and to be happy. </span></div>
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I have no debts. But I owe a lot--to the strangers, friends and family who continue who to open their hearts and their homes to me; to the teachers and studio owners who entrust me with their spaces, students and visions; to the students who entrust me with their bodies, their emotional well being and their peace of mind, even if it's just for an hour and a half; to the meditation practice that has significantly quieted down my speed-driven brain; to the Ashtanga yoga practice that has taught me how to be in my body, how to balance strength and flexibility, how to be vulnerable and how to "be." I owe a lot to all those who love me unconditionally, who support me, mostly from untold distances. I owe a lot to my teachers and guides and guardian angels, all of whom come just at the right moment.<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"> I owe a lot to the great challenges and great challengers who have been among my greatest teachers. I owe </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">a lot to God, which I also call the Universe, which I also call Love, which one day I would like to call Everyone, but, honestly, I think that will take a lot more yoga. And all of this owing actually creates this unbelievable surpluss, abundance. Every moment filled with potential, with opportunity, with openings. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">I am starting to wake up to a world where anything can happen, where there are infinite possibilities. That I can live anywhere, do anything. And I'm surprised because I'm not scared, surprised because for so long living, truly living on the limb actually frightened me to the point of paralysis. I feel excited--perhaps with a healthy amount of anxiety still, but mostly, I feel excited because I </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">am realizing that I am wealthy beyond my imagination. </span></div>
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as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-65152046492974121962014-09-09T08:03:00.002+05:302014-09-09T16:43:13.287+05:30nyc: drawing circles<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUk5rfYLqo6s_aiIktNqZT7stiyZCrjf43A8EIa1e4DHfA13MC6w7nLRKrpMt3gGa2f5CpyCPiuNx79_3QY4ccB2itD7O3bq3XOHt5UNqAH9o8UibkBFGkLIQDiJIANSbLJMj_8Fxp26I/s1600/photo+2-8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUk5rfYLqo6s_aiIktNqZT7stiyZCrjf43A8EIa1e4DHfA13MC6w7nLRKrpMt3gGa2f5CpyCPiuNx79_3QY4ccB2itD7O3bq3XOHt5UNqAH9o8UibkBFGkLIQDiJIANSbLJMj_8Fxp26I/s1600/photo+2-8.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Full Moon tonight over Brooklyn, NYC.</td></tr>
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<br /></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Returning to Japan after a year was an incredible experience, showing me how
much I can change and grow between summers. How incredibly resilient the heart
is, how it strengthens and expands with struggle—and, of course, love. How we are
built to overcome such struggles and from them heal. How self-confidence and
self-belief can bloom from such small seeds. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">What a year it has been, full of
blessings, full of incredible travels and adventures, amazing new connections, and most of all the opportunities to share what I love so dearly,
and through teaching learn so much myself.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So, here I am finding myself drawing circles, leaving Japan for New York to attend my sister’s
wedding--a landmark visit filled with celebration as she marks a new phase of her life.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Moreover, New York is where I started this blog, just a little over 3 years ago. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It was
my first stop after pulling out my roots from my idyllic tropical island home
in the Philippines and deciding that, for the time being, I would live in the
world. Little did I know that I would still be on the road, that the simple
desire to seek out love would turn into the
biggest romantic adventure—with myself!; that the act of humbly surrendering as
a yoga student would turn me into a teacher; that by letting go of that I knew,
of all that made me feel secure, I would feel more myself, more comfortable in
my own skin and in the world around me.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So, <i>Hello, New York City!</i>, one of the first places I ever traveled to by myself in my teens, one of the first places to truly thrill me, that ignited my thirst for adventure and living. Here
I am back in New York. A beautiful full moon evening. Here I am once again drawing circles, discovering that each end is a beginning...</span></div>
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as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-15389895801189547782014-09-08T08:25:00.002+05:302014-09-08T08:37:27.447+05:30the bamboo path<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR6hsVuq2BbH-jq6Pg4ruxI8Qu5tF5EArIfWD45EFdGcyf1UoI46JoAHQmQyCbFnzSf-k5ctcQDjvC6kc-kVbrrG1c8mEB61DwvPRTbfNy4ZkS-CYEwnMsGFCVmEl4yoBuU5khOpVq3cA/s1600/IMG_8304.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR6hsVuq2BbH-jq6Pg4ruxI8Qu5tF5EArIfWD45EFdGcyf1UoI46JoAHQmQyCbFnzSf-k5ctcQDjvC6kc-kVbrrG1c8mEB61DwvPRTbfNy4ZkS-CYEwnMsGFCVmEl4yoBuU5khOpVq3cA/s1600/IMG_8304.JPG" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
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Before I left Japan, I wanted to return to Arashiyama in Kyoto. The bamboo
forest there seemed to call to me. Even though I have been blessed to see it a
number of times now, and even though there are plenty of sights and treasures
that I have not yet tasted in Kyoto and in Kansai, I felt it was somehow
important for me to make the trip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
so on my last full day in Kyoto, I squeezed in a late afternoon visit, just as
the famous path cleared out of tourists. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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There, I walked alone, in the quiet, scant light bending
around the clusters of bamboo, thinking about life’s journey, and my very own
especially. <br />
<br />
Preparing to set off again, to take to the road, which has been my home—a very
good one—these recent years, I felt much excitement, freedom and joy but also a
degree of sadness. Returning to Japan had been an unexpected heart opening; in
many ways it was a return to love. It was an unfastening of windows and doors,
an airing out of stuffy old rooms, and a letting in of the summer, sunshine,
warm breezes. It can be hard to see such a season pass and not feel like it is
an end of something.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I felt deeply comforted walking between the two walls of
bamboo. I felt how very strong they were, how well rooted, and also flexible.
This path reminded me that we are all on this life’s journey, all seeking
sunshine, all wanting to grow, to be strong, to be flexible, to find balance. <br />
<br />
The bamboo does not mourn the end of summer, it simply adapts and continues to
live, to grow, to, at times, struggle, other times, flourish. The seasons, too,
will also not stop one from walking the path, each step an opportunity to
learn, to grow, to expand. And while the distance between Japan and myself
increases, I feel that I am still walking the bamboo path. <br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Even now, while on a plane, somewhere between
Shanghai and New York City. The way could not be less clear for me; all I know
is that I am once again on the move—drawing lines in air, a trail of smoke
between point A and point B. Still, I know with a great certainly in my cells
and in my bones, that the path is still right here, slowly, gracefully unwinding,
for me and my fellow bamboo.</span><!--EndFragment-->
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as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-27720882488865606652014-06-15T01:40:00.000+05:302014-06-15T01:40:07.246+05:30a year of love<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj84JS-utY7VGxZJ7qkE-kf6q6gG5yjNpSS-9atYODhAgUYOD2e9yVivgLkw9Orpz7x0o9UhDav3c7ekndg8UQt3rxrNBV-gdlK-Skyb82STQF_FRsNQyTJnH5dBE3HorHDoUWgNB-2xJs/s1600/P1250027.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj84JS-utY7VGxZJ7qkE-kf6q6gG5yjNpSS-9atYODhAgUYOD2e9yVivgLkw9Orpz7x0o9UhDav3c7ekndg8UQt3rxrNBV-gdlK-Skyb82STQF_FRsNQyTJnH5dBE3HorHDoUWgNB-2xJs/s1600/P1250027.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<i>It has been a while--again. Unlike other lapses in writing, there hasn't been a lack of things to write, nor has there been a lack of inspiration, but rather a simple pull towards the moment. The processing of things, which often manifests in me bouncing back ideas to myself, many times through these blog entries, were seamlessly facilitated by months with my friend and mirror, Amy. Now, however, as I return to the "road" that is my life, to this my singular journey, I cannot help but feel that it is time to also return to the word. Pages need filling. Accounts need to be made. A story needs telling...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>Manila, Philippines.<br />
<br />
The officer at immigration asks, when did I last leave the Philippines? I realize it only as I answer, June 10, today, a year ago. <br />
<br />
I did not mean to be away so long. A year was not a part of my plan, neither was teaching in Japan or Barcelona, nor was the second prolonged trip to Cairo. What I did have was a return ticket from London to Manila for early December 2013, an apartment reserved in Mysore, India for the end of that year till March and the delusion that the journey I was on was a trip made for two.<br />
<br />
I am learning to not be so attached to plans, learning to accept that plans change, often for the better if one can manage to cease from resisting it.<br />
<br />
Returning to the Philippines, to my place of origin, to where this particular journey started, "brings it all home"... I feel a little like a top, that's been spinning, spinning, spinning, moving, moving, moving. Coming home is like the top coming to a sudden and definite stop. It's startling this strange stillness; it's helping me recognize how much I've been moving, how much movement has been in my life. I am startled and amazed and in awe of it.<br />
<br />
How much can happen in a year! How this time last year, life was actually kind of bleak, the ground--all that I thought I knew about my so-called-great-love--being pulled out from underneath me. And how for weeks I lived in a grey despairing cloud, crying on my yoga mat, crying in kirtan, crying in the kitchen, crying to Monte Perdido, the "Lost Mountain" in the Spanish Pyranees. It was a breakdown of epic proportions and I was stewing in it, unable to leave, unwilling to change...at least, that's what it felt like at the time.<br />
<br />
The crazy thing now is that while I recall--embarrassingly, all too well--what a heaving mess I was, I don't actually remember exactly what the sadness felt like, not the airless depths of it, though I recall how deeply it effected me. It is already a memory about someone I knew, who kind of resembled me, but wasn't really me or isn't really me now.<br />
<br />
The heart is so resilient and wise and efficient; lack of love is actually just space in which true love can enter. One wee failed relationship gave birth to a year of falling in love with places, whole countries, and entire groups of people, with friends and with students, with the yoga practice, with freedom and wanderlust, and, most importantly, with myself.<br />
<br />
It has been a year of love. The messiness, the crying, the frustration, the sadness, the excavation and exorcisms of old and new ghosts. The travel, the joy, the excitement and thrill of discovery and recognition, the adventure, the dancing, getting drunk of life, eating, the meeting of soul mates, the simplest acts of living, medicine. All love.<br />
<br />
Things may not have gone according to plan, yet I could not have planned it better. I set off a year ago for love. I believed that I was in love then--and perhaps I was. All I know now is that I have returned home more<i> In</i> LOVE than ever before. There is no object to this love, it has no direction. It does not exist as a relationship status, it does not seek definition. It is a state of being, simple and uncomplicated.<br />
<br /></div>
as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-23228069026914520122014-03-21T03:33:00.001+05:302015-10-08T07:12:36.454+05:30search for home<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSO77h13JPkqmtiOXRk7tTu01culG3PKgXtKF_QgSL4py4n6YnauQrg3H-f49qAx9MQfevU_r12q89QD9SRzqsnxmQ-kiTOR2xE77xYyBAloRwNkSih7XhQyg-kT3LuSkVc-WX0f2JN_w/s1600/IMG_2098.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSO77h13JPkqmtiOXRk7tTu01culG3PKgXtKF_QgSL4py4n6YnauQrg3H-f49qAx9MQfevU_r12q89QD9SRzqsnxmQ-kiTOR2xE77xYyBAloRwNkSih7XhQyg-kT3LuSkVc-WX0f2JN_w/s1600/IMG_2098.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Life on the road...</td></tr>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the summer of 2011, I sorted through my belongings in
Boracay Island where I had nested comfortably for nearly 5 years, selling half
of my things and packing up the rest to place into storage in my father’s house
in Manila. For me, it was a bold decision; I had plans to visit my sister and
mom in the US for the summer and then India in the fall, but beyond that I had
no idea, I just had this overwhelming sense that it was time to go, that moving
forward also meant leaving the place that I had, for some time, called “home.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
It had occurred to me that in my adulthood I went where I was called, never
with any clear intention to put down roots. Living in the Philippines seemed an accident. After university, I originally planned for a year of
work and travel in the region, then I lingered, never thinking it was
permanent. It took me a couple of years to cancel my health insurance in the
US, for example, and nearly seven years to work on my residency in the country
where I was born. I accept now that I had chosen to live in the Philippines,
but I must admit I wasn’t totally conscious of it. <br />
<br />
Where was I to live after studying yoga in India? I didn’t know. Though I love
the Philippines, I wasn’t sure if that was where I really belonged. Traveling
came with the idea that I was also in search of a home, a home of my deliberate
choosing, a place where I could continue to grow and live the way I liked, that
suited my needs, which had changed since first moving to the
Philippines in my early twenties. <br />
<br />
So, I have traveled. Not always to the places where one might expect. A couple
of destinations, I have chosen for this purpose, with a real desire to try
things out. Though mostly, I have played the “accidental tourist,”
ending up in places through forces outside myself, herded here and there
through some person or desire to study yoga or work opportunity. <br />
<br />
Needless to say, the so-called “search” is still on--I write this while flying
between Rome and Cairo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have just been
in Barcelona for two months, Egypt previous to that, Japan before Egypt,
largely driven by work, without forgetting this homeward intention. <br />
<br />
At some point, I thought, I would find myself in a place that would click, a
community I deeply resonated with, that I would instantly know by the measure of
happiness I felt in the place.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
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The great irony is, of course, I have been happy just about
everywhere, many places appealing to one aspect of my personality or the other.
<br />
<br />
In Japan, for example, I loved the sweetness and the diligence of the students. I liked how
everything worked like clockwork, the trains were always on time, there was a
certain ease in living. I enjoyed Kyoto particularly, the energy of the river
running through the city, musician students practicing along it, hundreds of
years-old shrines and temples raising the city’s vibration. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like a madwoman, I liked Cairo for pretty much the opposite
reasons. I struggled with the chaos, lack of infrastructure, and socio-political
instability, but recognized that along with that came this incredible
spontaneity, like anything can happen—contentiously, not
always a good thing—but when it’s good, it’s indescribable. I admired the students
for their vibrancy and outspokenness, their ability to revel in the crazy,
their resilience amidst insanity. Cairo’s frenetic energy is intense, but I
loved how it brought the practice to the everyday. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
And then there was Barcelona, its cool Mediterranean energy in the streets, in
the culture, in the students’ practice, the natural warmth of its inhabitants,
easy going and friendly, familiar and demonstrative. I loved the people, the
opportunities for spiritual exploration and alternative living, the sense of
community—it’s at once a big city and a small village. I loved its city
landscape, its architecture sandwiched between beach and mountains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It seems sometimes that seeing more of the world hasn’t
narrowed down my choices, but has alarmingly increased them. <br />
<br />
What I’ve started to realize, however, is it’s not so much about searching for a home, but more about choosing one.<br />
<br />
The last year of travel, staying at least two months in one place, has shown me
that I can be happy pretty much anywhere, that truly "home is where the heart is" and that I can grow pretty much anywhere
so long as I stop and relax long enough to lay down roots. That our humanity makes us a different kind of plant, we can grow regardless of the condition of the soil, so like as we like it.<br />
<br />
And what of the search? This projection of some future home continues to echo
in the recesses of my mind, but living not searching has become more and more important.<br />
<br />
For now, I am happy wherever I land. When I arrived in London a week ago, I got a "welcome home" message from my friend of 20 years. When I returned to Barcelona, I was welcomed home by friends who picked me up at the train station. This evening, I landed in Cairo, where I entered my friend's flat, the one I lived in for two months last year, and felt at home. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When people ask me, "Where do you live?" My answer is not always straightforward. Most of my things are in Manila. I'm from the Philippines. I also grew up in the US. Most of my heart is where I am standing at this very moment, but bits of my heart are also in other places that I've put energy into recently, where I loved, where I have been loved. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At some point, I reckon, I will choose one place to plant myself, but for now: Where do I live? I guess my best answer, the most honest if not a little supercilious, is I live in the world--and yes, very happily. </div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-58422702663572753702014-03-19T22:30:00.001+05:302014-03-20T17:53:20.688+05:30the barcelona weigh station<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqEXoS_5oJ0HSxp0OqvbV4bfu7a5MJz4GQ4kRo54QsVkXRQe1Bm1b6ZY91nojBmg6IUnfKTUgpn71PNliYd7YJQRrQV8xNsfHHQrUTxawPQqRJhPpiQ-HZ8Rp3ViNoO_r1U5mUIRts2so/s1600/IMG_1433.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqEXoS_5oJ0HSxp0OqvbV4bfu7a5MJz4GQ4kRo54QsVkXRQe1Bm1b6ZY91nojBmg6IUnfKTUgpn71PNliYd7YJQRrQV8xNsfHHQrUTxawPQqRJhPpiQ-HZ8Rp3ViNoO_r1U5mUIRts2so/s1600/IMG_1433.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barcelona: where so many elements meet for me. <br />
View from above St. Joseph's--en route to Parque Guell.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Barcelona, the penultimate day. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Spain is a special place, figuring quite prominently at the start of this recent
phase of life journey. My love for it grows with each meeting. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I came to Madrid nearly three years ago to perform poetry
with my friend Catalan-Filipino creative and poet Clara Balaguer (who I am
incidentally meeting tonight and for the first time in Barcelona), an event
that was so surprisingly random, unbelievable and spectacular but that is nowadays
also strangely, beautifully commonplace. <br />
<br />
Over the last year and a half, it’s been about Barcelona, though. Passing
through seven times over the last nine months, it seems to be a recurring layer
in a great multi-layered-life experience-cake. The first was just a day. But
since then, each time I’ve come through, I spend more and more time here. Each
time, the experience becomes more and more expansive. <br />
<br />
This city has drawn me in. I have my favorite cafes, favorite plazas where I
like to sit, people watch, take in the scenery. I can navigate the streets on foot
now. I have friends here-- dear, good friends. And I have memories, quite a few
landmark ones, some really beautiful and comforting, some sad and pensive, and
a growing number of the mind-blowing/heart-opening kind.<br />
<br />
It is many things for me, I recognize. And if to go into it all, there would be
no end to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is clear is that it
is an important weigh station, where I am able to come and stop and assess
between comings and goings. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
Each time, I can’t help but note how different I am from the last time I was
here, how different I feel, how the weight of experience has worked on me, and,
thus, how differently I am interacting with the city and with those around me. How
much more trust I have, how much more confidence and openness. <br />
<br />
I can feel how with each succeeding visit I have become lighter but also more
grounded. I have dropped unnecessary weight: sadness, self-doubt, grief,
expectations—though I am sure there is a lot more to let go off. <br />
<br />
I have put on some good weight, too: nourishing food and friendships,
experience teaching and learning a city. <br />
<br />
The time here, this prolonged stop of 2 months and a bit, has had an incredible
balancing effect. Barcelona is not just a scale; it is beyond measurement. I
feel its magic, the gentle support of its easy and yet powerful Mediterranean
energy, its eclectic local and adopted inhabitants, its music, its sunniness
despite the winter, its positive healing touch. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s given me time and space to simply be: to
be with friends, to be with my practice and with the teaching, to be with
myself. <br />
<br />
Now, I feel neither light, nor heavy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
feel full, not just in weight, but also in spirit. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So…gratitude abounds! I look forward the next visit to the Barcelona
weigh station. <o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-65284493449698012422014-03-19T16:10:00.000+05:302014-03-19T16:10:40.998+05:309 Months<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpX829g6iXTMHRutV6orBFsCLLJKG6MOuKQSI8P_rmNLnkRmdS-hucm82xtuag6FhVp52i6MFae9G9ridnMlAmRc1fScmJULLhO2uIuvZ5U6VY4ZTWJ6WZryccX2vlz2jJcwykOg3XjdUO/s1600/IMG_2184.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpX829g6iXTMHRutV6orBFsCLLJKG6MOuKQSI8P_rmNLnkRmdS-hucm82xtuag6FhVp52i6MFae9G9ridnMlAmRc1fScmJULLhO2uIuvZ5U6VY4ZTWJ6WZryccX2vlz2jJcwykOg3XjdUO/s1600/IMG_2184.JPG" height="240" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></div>
</td></tr>
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Last look at London. Sunset from Gatwick airport yesterday.</div>
</td></tr>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Nine months. The length of time it takes to create a life, to animate and birth a whole new being into the world.</div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
It’s been nine months since I began this particular and peculiarly long journey, since I packed up my bags in Manila, and boarded a plane to London, England. I had a return ticket to Asia in December, but even then I had a feeling that this trip would go different directions, that it would have its own sense of time and timing, that it would grow beyond my imaginings.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
For me, it has been nine months of traveling and teaching, of self-practice, of healing and self-process. Nine months of living spread out in different parts of the world, two to three months at a time. Nine months of yoga practice like no other. Nine months of getting to know a new place, a new culture, falling in love with a new group of friends, falling in love all over again with old friends too, and through these new experiences getting to know myself a good deal better.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
All this, largely unplanned. I did have one. But when do thing ever go according to plan?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
What was supposed to be a great coming together turned out to be quite a massive falling apart; a great adventure of two turned into a journey of one --and what a great journey it has been for me, in truth, the greatest of my life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
I was also supposed to study with my teacher in India. India didn’t happen this season, but instead I have been attending a living classroom spread across two continents and one island nation, my teacher’s teachings coming to life in the varied environments and landscapes, different cultures and numerous yoga communities and spaces where I have taught or visited.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
It has not been entirely easy. Closing a relationship whilst teaching in an isolated village with my ex-partner in close proximity was a little like emotional carnage. Tearing myself away from my own co-dependencies was worse. And letting go of my expectations as I moved further and further away was like pulling teeth.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
But mostly it’s been beautiful and easy, with some incredible opportunities: the call to work in Osaka, Cairo and Barcelona; the friends who appeared quite like magic, just at the right moment, to share my struggles, to facilitate healing, and to celebrate the victories; the lessons from teaching; the blessings of students.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
This week, I returned to England, where this trip began nine expansive months ago, not as a different person but more myself than perhaps that I’ve ever been. More aware of my fears but also a great deal braver about confronting them; still trying to figure out how to take care of myself (on the road and in life) but also more attuned to the needs of my body, my mind and heart; more self-confident while being more informed of the issues that continue to need attention and work.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
It’s interesting to observe the ninth month now, at the starting point, a good place to end things and finalize resolutions, and a good place to launch into a new adventure. The cycle of endings and new beginnings continues; the journey goes on and on…</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
But for now I feel the feeling of the new. I look at my life now like a mother looking at her newborn child. I am in awe of it, totally in love and totally freaked out. Kind of amazed that this crazy, wee but very alive thing has come from me, from my experience, work, dreams, and efforts. I want to protect it, to safeguard it from danger, from negativity, but I also know that that would be counter-productive. Because, really, I want to continue to grow, and that means a certain amount of vulnerability and a willingness to bravely meet the ever-changing, ever-surprising crazy world. </div>
</div>
</div>
as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-76553163007340895872014-01-07T00:45:00.004+05:302014-01-07T01:03:02.825+05:30cairo calling, the decision<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVRwnG61uhlNbO8Fo-HbcHaibtcVJLPMjNSFQLjTrnN-9J90kVk11zn3Q-wuKqTOF8EsBMb9zF7vGJae3xUiQKv3345AVjkCx4wjoD4XauodKz7jOzCKj35v50kGqD0FolT7Gmgtuhp2E/s1600/P1210933.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVRwnG61uhlNbO8Fo-HbcHaibtcVJLPMjNSFQLjTrnN-9J90kVk11zn3Q-wuKqTOF8EsBMb9zF7vGJae3xUiQKv3345AVjkCx4wjoD4XauodKz7jOzCKj35v50kGqD0FolT7Gmgtuhp2E/s1600/P1210933.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vigilant armored tank "protecting" the entrance of Maadi Degla,<br />
which was my home for two months. When I first noticed them,<br />
my friend commented that I should feel safe...hmmm...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
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August-September, 2013. A month before there was a second revolution in Egypt. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s all over CNN, BBC, international newspapers. Despite my
efforts at being disconnected from most media—I am guilty of falling into the
category of person who generally opt out from being negatively influenced by
the news by ignoring it altogether—I cannot ignore the current events. My
family and friends won’t let me alone. My students in Osaka are worried too.
“Are you still going to Egypt?” they all ask repeatedly. And I don’t have the
answer. <br />
<br />
At this point, I cannot reach my friend Iman Elsherbiny, who invited me to
teach her classes from end of October to December while she herself studies
with our teacher Sharath Jois in Mysore, India. I worry about her—that is, until
I see her beautiful sun-drenched photos in Mar Salam on Instagram.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
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Still, my mother is unrelenting in her nagging. My friend
James, who was supposed to teach with me the first two weeks in Egypt, bows out
gracefully. One student in Japan is quick to point out news items, he actually shows me the newspaper. When Iman
and I finally talk, I cannot help but ask her, considering the political
instability, should we continue with plans or cancel my trip?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I will always remember what Iman, known as Amy to her
friends in Egypt, said to me over that Skype conversation in September. She had just arrived
in Cairo after teaching in the South for some of the summer. “Babe, I think everything
is going to be ok. But I can’t guarantee that things won’t happen. What you can
be sure of is this: that, if you come, you will have friends and family here
who will take care of you.” (I may be paraphrasing a little here…)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Something about what Amy said, how she said it really
helped me settle into the idea of going. It felt right to
go to Egypt, to teach in Cairo. The world, I knew, particularly in that region,
would be whirling, that was a given. But I also felt that there was this great potential for
connection.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What Amy said that day could not have been more spot on.
When I left Egypt three days ago, saying goodbye to students and to the people
I’d gotten to know (some over a couple of months, some over a couple of days
even) was indeed like saying goodbye to dear family and friends. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What I recognize now is this: I’d been falling in love—only
with dozens of people at the same time! Through them, through the heart
connections we’d made, through the beautiful interactions, the solid sharings,
my relationship with Egypt itself has deepened into a great and complicated
love. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And like many great love stories, Egypt doesn’t feel like it has
a beginning for me, and it doesn’t feel like it has an end. I can only say that my
love for it will always be there, that there will always be some part of me
that will long for it, that will be pulled by its energy, that will crave for
its musicality, for its warmth, and for its spontaneity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There's an Egyptian proverb that says once you drink from the Nile you are destined to return to Cairo. I have a feeling that this is true, that while I have drunk my fill, my thirst for it will not abate. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">***</span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br />
I have so wanted to write about my time in Cairo and more recently in Aswan and in
Sinai. <br />
<br />
Some of my observations have come through the yoga practice. This I’ve shared
on my work site kazcastilloyoga.com. But the personal stuff, I haven’t
really touched on…<br />
<br />
It’s been an intense two and a half months. I can only say that living it has
been more important than writing it, though am feeling the need now to put it down, to process in this crazy public way that I do. I hope there will be
time now to slowly, slowly write, to shine a lovely light on the place
and its people, and to personally understand the gift, the experience it has given me. </span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></i>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">So, even though I am in now in Barcelona (I arrived here three days ago and will start teaching tomorrow), more on Cairo to come...<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-52711256197219640042013-11-27T01:34:00.000+05:302013-12-09T21:02:44.771+05:30a great need<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Reading this Hafiz (translated by Ladinsky) poem made me think about Egypt and how wouldn't it be just amazing if the need were great enough to get people to hold hands and climb out of the difficulties together. (Aside: excited to tour around Cairo next week! On the program some great spiritual sights and Sufi ecstatic dance.)</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>A
Great Need</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Out<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Of a
great need<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">We
are all holding hands<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">And
climbing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Not
loving is a letting go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Listen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The
terrain around here<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Is<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Far
too<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Dangerous<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">For<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">That.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-2945155457296818722013-10-30T10:06:00.002+05:302013-10-30T15:48:53.949+05:30shibuya crossing: another unlikely meeting place<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWsohaZnGiwFDp1JeUdiCK2marPFwn-AaqpETMaQu4UyFjkeps00wH464iLLj_4ZplZwcNHNHTbpzh-LY3ZwqzDbXJJfWrVTGCT0Jd2dBq3TWQGNEj6-k9YmaystFYImeIsJtYS4SnpJU/s1600/P1210487.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWsohaZnGiwFDp1JeUdiCK2marPFwn-AaqpETMaQu4UyFjkeps00wH464iLLj_4ZplZwcNHNHTbpzh-LY3ZwqzDbXJJfWrVTGCT0Jd2dBq3TWQGNEj6-k9YmaystFYImeIsJtYS4SnpJU/s400/P1210487.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shibuya.</td></tr>
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<br />
Immortalized in many an artistic photograph and film moment, Tokyo’s iconic
pedestrian crossing in Shibuya can amaze, thrill and mortify with its density
of the pedestrians pounding through the 5-way crossing. I’ve been told that on
one heavy crossing you could have a million people pass through there. Now,
even to one so poor with numbers such as myself, that seems highly improbably,
but seeing myself the thickness of the human traffic, I can imagine that it is
possible. Regardless of the numbers, one cannot deny the fact that it’s a
staggeringly large amount of people, all with a mission, all moving towards
some destination and, for one moment in time, they converge to cross one of Japan’s
busiest intersections, swift flowing rivers of human walking bodies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This is the backdrop of my last jaw dropping coinkidink,
so utterly random, so brilliant in its timing that I can’t help but smile at
the universe’s continued blessings and good humor. Because this is where I met
my friend Taeko, whilst crossing the street. <br />
<br />
This might not sound very impressive at this point, so let me backtrack… <br />
<br />
It’s Day One in Tokyo after a rather relaxed two months and a bit in Kansai
region’s Osaka, a big city, but after sometime a manageable one--very orderly
except for some “unruly” pedestrian and cyclists (I being one of them, for a
brief period of time). If Osaka is a big city, then Tokyo is a monster one.
Everything is amplified: the buildings, the subway system, the advertising, the
business signage, the noise, the people…<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I was feeling a bit jolted out of my comfort zones, I was
missing the easy pace and wholesome energy of Kansai. Previously, I was in
peaceful and green Kyoto, enjoying lovely bike rides in the city, visiting
temples, gardens and shrines, eating healthy veg meals and chilling at gameboard
hot spot, Cafe Meeple.<br />
<br />
And now, I was on the move AGAIN and in overly vibrant hyper-driven Tokyo! I
was feeling the intensity of it and was doubting my decision to leave Kyoto. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Here I was without a phone trying to meet friends at various
meeting spots I had no previous experience with. Had managed ok through a lunch
and an afternoon outing. But then there was a dinner meet-up set at the east
exit door of the Shinjuku station. I thought, if all the signs fail me, I still
had my compass.<br />
<br />
There, I would meet Taeko, a new Tokyo resident, and our friend Andrea, who was
coming in on the trains from Ibaraki, where he lives and works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wasn’t too worried about the meeting, though
my friend Alona, who I was exploring Shibuya with, had her concerns. Shinjuku
is a big station.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0GJZnJidJC8X2Tk9Sg9R1837YR4C39CG9lwtIueXVlZ1vJq9tjPKmK8vlnqqMtovy_J9QL3OhkZ99pmWiudBEsF4XtagSk3nIbB7WWgBbLoOurq8E8EVWecDQ_RV58M8l-awV1V6Bf9M/s1600/P1210491.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0GJZnJidJC8X2Tk9Sg9R1837YR4C39CG9lwtIueXVlZ1vJq9tjPKmK8vlnqqMtovy_J9QL3OhkZ99pmWiudBEsF4XtagSk3nIbB7WWgBbLoOurq8E8EVWecDQ_RV58M8l-awV1V6Bf9M/s320/P1210491.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After crossing, Taeko is still on the phone with Andrea!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When we parted, I had a good 3 hours to kill before meeting,
so I decided to return to the famous Shibuya pedestrian crossing and try my
luck at trying to capture the hustle and bustle of the people with my camera. <br />
<br />
In a way it was laughable, me crossing the streets a number of times, trying
this crossing or that, the bumbling tourist. There was no capturing the scale
of the human movement on these Tokyo streets, at least, not with my phone
camera. But with so many people, so much action, I felt anonymous, another body
moving with the flow, arm outstretched upwards, camera over my head, trying to
snap up a little of that oh so special Shibuya energy. I must have been on my
fourth or fifth round, in the middle of one of the crossings, when Taeko snuck
up beside me to say hi and to tell me that she had Andrea on the phone just at
that very moment and that they were just wondering how they would get a hold of
me—then passes the phone to me and I hear Andrea on the line. Smack in the
middle of the crossing. Seriously?! What were the possibilities?!<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Taeko then walks me down several fabulous streets, where the
energy and flavor of young, hip Tokyo is pumping, then we head to Shinjuku
together, where we wait for Andrea at an exit door, which I must admit I would
have had a difficult time finding. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I recount my story to my friend Alona after Monday yoga
practice as we have coffee and breakfast at the fashionable Omotesando
district, she points out that this is, in fact, something that happens to me
all the time. And what’s more is that it seems to be happening with greater and
greater frequency: these golden moments so fortuitous, so sublimely random and
yet totally perfect. Some meetings and events may not have the grandiose effect
or the same shock value of a chance encounter in Shibuya, but every encounter
is a blessing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wrote about my last serendipitous meeting in Barcelona as
the universe’s feedback system, confirming that all is perfect, that I am just
at the right time, the right place. But I am starting to sense that these
aren’t isolated events, that each encounter is part of a great trail, tasty
morsels that mark this fantastic forward-moving journey.<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-80151125636731201272013-10-30T09:53:00.001+05:302013-10-30T09:53:55.535+05:30love the idea or... love, the idea<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG_72ToQUmDhOh9cdB_zbMAhx6KvADKsZczojivHJ-CDVqdvqU-Tqg2B9nvb692pmXKx6xPk1L26pFzPeifHJ102PSIUIdLZtUXwpXLvP6N3dAfe0Er9MOUu6DNQq_UUdgw_6h6a2CoI8/s1600/P1180961.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG_72ToQUmDhOh9cdB_zbMAhx6KvADKsZczojivHJ-CDVqdvqU-Tqg2B9nvb692pmXKx6xPk1L26pFzPeifHJ102PSIUIdLZtUXwpXLvP6N3dAfe0Er9MOUu6DNQq_UUdgw_6h6a2CoI8/s400/P1180961.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We all want love. We dream of it. We crave it. We seek it
out. <br />
<br />
The very idea of it becomes a thing of epic proportions. And as we wait for it,
the bigger and bigger the idea gets. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes, it is a thing we fear and run from,
either way it cultivates the same energy. Elusive or prolific, it gives birth
to more ideas of love. <br />
<br />
And when we perceive it to come, how easily it moves us to distraction, how
easily we get carried away, how easily our mind molds it into the thing we’ve
been waiting so patiently for or we’ve built up so greatly. We are such
visionaries, sometimes, seeing/creating only what we like to see.<br />
<br />
So, how do we distinguish love that is real from that which we have, in part,
made up? <br />
<br />
When my last relationship ended, I couldn’t quite get past how one person could
profess such a great love and then, after a lot of silent internal
deliberation, take it back. Was it all a lie, I asked myself? Was what we
experienced as love a false representation of one? <br />
<br />
(I’ve also been on the other end of this human equation, and I can honestly
say, neither end is easy or pleasant.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And perhaps there are no easy answers to such questions. <br />
<br />
Love itself is unanswerable. It is both the question and the answer; it is
complete. It is accountable to no one. It exists everywhere and its power is
immeasurable and mysterious. It is infinite and unending. <br />
<br />
But when love “ends” and seems so disappointing, what is that? Where does that
come from?<br />
<br />
What I am learning is not to blame love--which is guileless, it is innocent.
But, rather, to recognize that my experience of it is limited because I’m
human, and that those who I love and who love me are human too, and in our
limited being-ness we experience love in an imperfect and limited fashion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of us do our best, and many times our
best will fall short of the perfection that love is. We, as human beings, are
inconsistent; we stumble, fall, make mistakes; we also get up, dust ourselves off,
and try again. <br />
<br />
Love is different from the idea of love. The idea of love is mind-born. If
“love” is something that we think, then already there is something not quite
right about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
Real love is much more subtle than that. It is not experienced with the mind
but with the heart. And not even the physical beating heart, but the more
subtle energetic heart center. Love is an energy, not a thought. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Love is not what we think it is; it is what we feel it is.
But when we seek to define it, this feeling, we use a language that is not the
language of love, but the language of ideas, and many a time our ideas are
based on the way we think things should be.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And a good friend pointed out just this last summer, as I
was moaning about how I thought things “should be,” that there is, really, no such
thing! Love, simply, is. Not an easy thing for the thinking heart to accept,
but there it is. <br />
<br />
And it’s a whole new challenge; this feeling love, experiencing it just as it is:
in essence, it is great, always present but also changing and transforming
because those around me, including myself, change and transform. I’m
learning—sometimes with great difficulty--to just feel it, not to judge, not to
discern, not to categorize, just being with it and, in turn, letting it be with
me, another act of surrender, another way of being. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<!--EndFragment--></div>
as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-45243405539173942692013-10-03T18:31:00.003+05:302013-10-03T19:43:49.348+05:30last days in osaka<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC7dG8T0fqYiQYtLbBiS3Czsn70XGFgMra6rxjvGfFxNvS7V7HjYjaApj68JEu_HFQ81SbkgGkKSzRdbUgYexGhPaQpfnbYit6V63S7eF4zjhmrVLDRaKeSHgSmLTvyMkLWys82KzVK-w/s1600/P1200230.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC7dG8T0fqYiQYtLbBiS3Czsn70XGFgMra6rxjvGfFxNvS7V7HjYjaApj68JEu_HFQ81SbkgGkKSzRdbUgYexGhPaQpfnbYit6V63S7eF4zjhmrVLDRaKeSHgSmLTvyMkLWys82KzVK-w/s400/P1200230.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The river runs through Osaka city. Nakanoshima park and island to the right. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Two more teaching days in Osaka. Almost 9 weeks. How
quickly time moves, it flows as if it were a river moving towards the sea. And for the two months here, I've been watching it go by, its
source, somewhere upriver, a place of unending rainfall. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From here, though, there is no indication of weathering
storminess, not anymore. Just steadily flowing time. There is no holding it, no
way of pausing it just for, at least, a tiny little moment. All there is to do
is to simply flow with it; move with it now, until it moors me into the next bit of
shoreline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So these are my last days in this bustling urban metropolis,
Japan’s second largest city. I meant to take a train today for sightseeing at
near-ish Himeji, but in the end, I couldn’t leave the city, which I am already
starting to miss. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6f11t5dcort_gcPFXshkLqPw0b_xgxx5yccC0wXXVtKvvtDUDd36gRaYpjHj2SGip6KH0lOdRoTFWRqYfmCS7rzKB6ZTNJW6yuXiXThFV4RYJhgGKU4IB25yGxKeNUvenAoZ0ZVNf0m0/s1600/IMG_3407.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6f11t5dcort_gcPFXshkLqPw0b_xgxx5yccC0wXXVtKvvtDUDd36gRaYpjHj2SGip6KH0lOdRoTFWRqYfmCS7rzKB6ZTNJW6yuXiXThFV4RYJhgGKU4IB25yGxKeNUvenAoZ0ZVNf0m0/s320/IMG_3407.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hipster haven: Brooklyn Roasting Company, Osaka branch.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So today, I’m on my borrowed bicycle, riding around in my
borrowed city, navigating with surprising ease between districts to eat, chill,
and run crucial final errands. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, I’m in my favorite hipster hang out, Brooklyn Roasting
Company, having a much needed free-trade iced soy latte (I did say it was hip!)
and feeling quite at home with the Japanese cool kids. This is just one of the
many places I’d like to make one last stop at. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taking a moment to write and recap the last
two months before I get on the road again, before the thought gets lost in the
whirling wonder of life at play. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
I meant to write more--story of my life really, this meaning to write
business—about Osaka, about the adventure of being in Japan, about this new
phase of my life teaching on the road, about the everyday blessings and the
surprising gifts of manifestation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
while there were a number of things and events that undermined that, I also
know that this time has been more about “being.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And Osaka has been an incredible filling station. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMMnhmg9F6t768RPl4A5knyzx_yZ8xKMAfEKXDubniA9T-ukf55JqNjE1K4okvCzfcqnzJ-3f_tKM47EXB651RdDRnTaFOCpYT7VU4fX79PlDELLi1C0xcv3P0hYX-00jHr_kWjPKPFiw/s1600/IMG_3300.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMMnhmg9F6t768RPl4A5knyzx_yZ8xKMAfEKXDubniA9T-ukf55JqNjE1K4okvCzfcqnzJ-3f_tKM47EXB651RdDRnTaFOCpYT7VU4fX79PlDELLi1C0xcv3P0hYX-00jHr_kWjPKPFiw/s320/IMG_3300.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mysore class in Spirit Yoga School where I've been teaching.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If the village of Vio in the Monte Perdido (or Lost Mountain)
National Park in the Araganese Pyranees—where I spent 8 weeks prior to Japan—was a
place of feeling the deep chasms and caves, the peaks and the valleys of myself,
then Osaka is where I filled up these great empty spaces with fulfilling work, with wonderful students, with
new experiences, with yoga practice, with good food, with steady loving
friendships, with good cheerful fun and doing things that I enjoy doing, and
with—and this has been most key—simply being myself. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It took a little bit of time to get off the old train of
thought, the tracks leading to nowhere, to arrive and be present in Osaka. But
this subtle city eased me slowly into the now. Day by day, as I
cycled around its streets, as I sampled its delicious delicacies, as I was awed
by the strangeness and uniqueness that is Japan and as I was met with the
reserved sweetness of the local people, I found a deep sense of happiness. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifIeQ4C_LTyOdOwC5KsJFqpAA3gmBJ_2Flk_3F2nDJPPPemu1yYnjtwUB6Lmm7b-LqdSj_uofNX3KUsoCHYH0eLJH7aSmD06pvdat4oIPrx_e0sFgsyqX3K_tETWCI9DhlTuWAg3fTNZo/s1600/IMG_3305.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifIeQ4C_LTyOdOwC5KsJFqpAA3gmBJ_2Flk_3F2nDJPPPemu1yYnjtwUB6Lmm7b-LqdSj_uofNX3KUsoCHYH0eLJH7aSmD06pvdat4oIPrx_e0sFgsyqX3K_tETWCI9DhlTuWAg3fTNZo/s200/IMG_3305.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goofy post-practice <br />
self portrait. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Without any of the old stories, old characters, in a whole new job in a whole country, I got to ask myself that crucial
question: who the heck am I?<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I won't go into the answers to
<i>the</i> question, none of which really matters anyway, what matters is that things do shift. Negative feelings dissipate. Shadows fade in the light. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Osaka, known as the food capital of Japan, lives up to its reputation. It nourished
me so exquisitely in Japanese fashion, with remarkable efficiency and orderliness, with quality
ingredients, with its own kind of quirkiness and aesthetics. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s been a very special time of self-recovery and self-recognition,
of surrendering into the great what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> T</span>he Big O has facilitated this recent bit
of transformation. I recognize that this is just one stop in a long journey. And how things,
myself included, fall apart only so that they can be put back together--hopefully, each time it happens--better than
ever. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-86097842872548033312013-09-22T21:44:00.000+05:302013-09-23T01:29:49.229+05:30master maneuvering<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiJtHjTc5DNn16iR0XfHSf1eqCDkNM4IozBSCuFIwFZGmHfi-rh05T1LLNeSUBYmSsTaTHSPKNVipuek1OHXuC5LO_BaDWyJMxpjGF6Ob7DbQK1Zb1zI1J_Y-oegYPvPQ1XsuQciCOcPQ/s1600/IMG_2983.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiJtHjTc5DNn16iR0XfHSf1eqCDkNM4IozBSCuFIwFZGmHfi-rh05T1LLNeSUBYmSsTaTHSPKNVipuek1OHXuC5LO_BaDWyJMxpjGF6Ob7DbQK1Zb1zI1J_Y-oegYPvPQ1XsuQciCOcPQ/s320/IMG_2983.jpg" width="240"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My makeshift altar to Swami Lakshmanjoo.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There are some days when you know that you are more or less in control. That your destiny is in your hands--or so you think.<br>
<br>
Then there are the other days when you know all is totally out of your hands, that it might have been there in your palms at some point, but then things change. Most of the time, we resist this. And struggle. Other times we surrender and allow ourselves to be softly moved and guided.<br>
<br>
I feel an expert at the former. Of finding myself suddenly out of control and digging my soles in because <i>by-golly</i> I don't want to be moved in another direction. I have chosen my path and intend to walk it by any means necessary!<br>
<br>
The days, however, when I don't struggle, these days are so very different. So very soft. And while it is easier to surrender to the lighter things in life, when I do, it's still surprising how things flow into one direction, even if it is not the way I meant it to be.<br>
<br>
Today feels like I've been maneuvered gently back into a space that I'd been avoiding. For certain reasons, my meditation practice has been less than regular. I hadn't performed puja since I left the Pyranees. My spiritual practices have been overshadowed by the simple act of surviving--which I think is acceptable, and most probably necessary.<br>
<br>
Today, it was time to come back, the universe seemed intent to herd me back into the fold with the mahasamadhi celebration of Swami Lakshmanjoo, a Kashmiri saint with whom I have felt a strong resonance with.<br>
<br>
I also played my part in this co-creation. The night before. I set up an altar, prepared my offerings, made the intention that I too would celebrate all on my own for the first time, here in Osaka. But I also wondered when there would be time. I would be practicing and teaching in the morning. Then lunch and tutoring some students English. Still, I knew the altar to Swamiji would be waiting at home.<br>
<br>
Then I arrived early at the studio to practice only to find that the space was already in use for a private class. Instead of wasting a ride back home, I took my mat down by the nearby riverside. There, I sat and meditated in the shady outdoors. It felt like a gift from Swamiji. As if he were saying, now is the time to meditate, so sit, lady, sit!<br>
<br>
Then my English lesson was cancelled and I could return home much earlier than anticipated. I thought, clever, Swamiji, you've even cleared my afternoon.<br>
<br>
On the way home from the restaurant where I had quick lunch (not the lingering kind we often do) with students after class, I spotted, as we were walking down the shotangai, a shop I'd never seen before filled with little Japanese curiosities. What caught my eye was a large Zen Buddhist Daruma or dharma doll. I could not believe it, I had been looking for this doll since I arrived in Japan. And it's been two months! Today of all days, it appears.<br>
<br>
A powerful talisman, it is also used as a tool for goal setting. I wanted to use it as a marker in which to set my new goal. Coincidence? Perhaps. But also another gift, an opportunity to set intentions. I bought one of the travel sized ones.<br>
<br>
As I returned home I received a message that a package had arrived and would I like to pick it up from the studio? And then I was off, riding my bicycle in the mid-afternoon sun. Not too far from home, I asked myself what was the point of running after some old things that had just been sent to me? I turned, stopped by the neighborhood flower shop. I had forgotten the flowers. The package could wait, but flowers, it seemed, were definitely in order (or on order by Swamiji).</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br>
In the end I was able to chant several Kashmiri hymns and the temple verses with only a little prompting from recordings. It was an intense two and a half hours singing them on my own, but it was nonetheless special, perhaps more so because of it. I also sat and meditated three times during the entire day; they weren't long sits but they were a good start. After the post chant meditation, I felt exhausted. As I looked pathetically at Swamiji's picture, he seemed to say, well what did you expect, leaving it so long.<br>
<br>
All in all, it was a quiet day. No homa, no fire ceremony. Only a little bit of burning incense, sage and palosanto. Just me and the likeness of this venerable saint. Some freshly cut flowers and washed fruit. But his spirit, I could feel, was with me too, moving from place to place, creating opportunities, removing obstacles that I would have gladly embraced, making me sit and watching me do it.<br>
<br>
I'm not entirely proud of having fallen off the spiritual bandwagon. I know that I have been in tune in other ways, through teaching, for example, and that other things have taken priority for very good reasons, also having to do with my wellbeing. But what I realize about today is that when time comes, we will be led back into alignment (with whatever it is that we believe in), so long as we allow ourselves to be moved by the gentle, quiet grace of the master.<br>
<br>
To Swamiji, with so much gratitude!<br>
</div>
as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-81405496659885439982013-09-21T21:22:00.001+05:302013-09-21T21:26:08.762+05:30preparing the altar, swamiji's mahasamadhi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKIlcM7DMXcMsMljUeqzsBOHgTCvirQZ9SJtS7ILHiQxJlwjGWGAOLEnNygMocZI0TqbvZq0z2K24tEtcE3vES1AbZHzF7uJ6B_AaqicFbFNn88d5qfTq6GZde0sAzWWd-bLbH4i3Ljt0/s1600/IMG_2958.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKIlcM7DMXcMsMljUeqzsBOHgTCvirQZ9SJtS7ILHiQxJlwjGWGAOLEnNygMocZI0TqbvZq0z2K24tEtcE3vES1AbZHzF7uJ6B_AaqicFbFNn88d5qfTq6GZde0sAzWWd-bLbH4i3Ljt0/s320/IMG_2958.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Preparing the altar for puja. Fruits are washed. <br />
Flowers will be bought and gently placed<br />
before Swamiji.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Tomorrow, 22 September, will be Swami Lakshmanjoo's mahasamadhi. Timing once again seems incredibly perfect. I have not offered puja to Swamiji, the Kashmiri saint of the Kashmir Shivite tradition, since I left the Spanish Pyranees, two months ago. So many things have been in the way, most of it in my head. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
But this last week has been a week of openings, of gentle releases, of taking big expansive breaths. I am feeling more myself than I have felt in ages. This is a good state, I remind myself, as I prepare to meet with such a Master, though I am still a little nervous about it. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
In 2011, I was in Culver City, with devotees of Swami Lakshmanjoo, who told stories from memory, lessons from him given directly to them. Last year, I was in Romania, amidst the Carpathian mountains with friends, together we chanted the hymns to him.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
This year, I am on my own. It will just be me and Swamiji. (Aside: I hope I don't freak out my share house mates in Osaka with the chanting!) I'm excited to meet with him like this, to humbly present myself--just as I am--along with the offerings, to chant as best as I can remember on my own. I will surely stumble through it. But it will be real, it will be honest. And as I was told two years ago, this day is not about me, it's about Swamiji. And for that, I am so totally ready. </div>
<br /></div>
as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-26925621931177555292013-09-11T01:23:00.002+05:302013-09-21T21:26:47.778+05:30borrowed wisdom from Stevie Nicks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMALicm7qFQz-ovHpqPvxH0znUNypaFoZQYVNf41m4xbDgfawuFbPhZZnsS2zzcm8nKOs56ps7sfcAC-rj_eRvdo51_0UhiUZXnkkhyphenhyphenbt2aGNrIAr5HUHyagvZ_7zwiPp1h7nB2m-4U7Q/s1600/P1190497.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMALicm7qFQz-ovHpqPvxH0znUNypaFoZQYVNf41m4xbDgfawuFbPhZZnsS2zzcm8nKOs56ps7sfcAC-rj_eRvdo51_0UhiUZXnkkhyphenhyphenbt2aGNrIAr5HUHyagvZ_7zwiPp1h7nB2m-4U7Q/s320/P1190497.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;">Song for the moment, Landslide:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;">I took my love and I took it down <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />I climbed a mountain and I turned around </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #474747; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;">And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />'Till the landslide brought me down <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Oh, mirror in the sky <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />What is love? <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Can the child within my heart rise above? <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides? <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Can I handle the seasons of my life? <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Mmm Mmm... <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Well, I've been afraid of changing <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />'Cause I've built my life around you <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />But time makes you bolder <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Children get older <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />I'm getting older too <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Well, I've been afraid of changing <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />'Cause I, I built my life around you <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />But time makes you bolder <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Children get older <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />I'm getting older too <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />I'm getting older too <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />So, take my love, take it down <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Oh climb a mountain and turn around <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Well the landslide will bring you down, down <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /><br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />And If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Well maybe the landslide will bring it down <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />Oh oh, the landslide will bring it down</span></div>
as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-54796972471141928392013-08-26T17:27:00.001+05:302013-08-26T20:47:44.319+05:30the visit<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgk2WuTVgsWySbhTPqtHmqTc1qW3koKnBStZ0fe_0Q0DOgi3jKM2CHhCIIiUdFa7ef6Zt0fjZuxzGpRZyoGJTomCXQJXPCXQvLv3odfETRBfJKNfQuksGTxw5gF7BAn38uF6zSptp7ho8/s640/blogger-image-839090893.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgk2WuTVgsWySbhTPqtHmqTc1qW3koKnBStZ0fe_0Q0DOgi3jKM2CHhCIIiUdFa7ef6Zt0fjZuxzGpRZyoGJTomCXQJXPCXQvLv3odfETRBfJKNfQuksGTxw5gF7BAn38uF6zSptp7ho8/s640/blogger-image-839090893.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div>At the arrival's gate, Kansai airport...<div><br></div><div>In a few moments, I will be meeting my friend Deva at the Osaka airport. Airports have quite a significance for me, especially over the past couple of years having been in an epic, part-time, on-again-off-again long-distance relationship. Today feels like an opportunity to make a new kind of airport meeting memories. <div><br></div><div>It is a treat for me to scoop this lovely young lady up. Deva is one of my earth angels. Almost two years ago, she fetched me from the Hong Kong airport. I was a little worse for wear then after an intensely burning summer and a wearily long flight from New York. And for the few days that I was there, she helped nurse me back into some sense of my self. We ate nourishingly good food, most of which she lovingly made, had some sweet walks with sublime vistas--even in such a crazy city as Hong Kong, and just had the kind of recharging time possible between good friends and fellow women folk.<div><br></div><div>She is going to be the first person to visit me in Japan. And with my time here quite limited, she'll possibly be the only one. </div><div><br></div><div>Again, like so many of the serendipitous events that have dotted this time, Deva's visit is like manna from heaven. A couple of days ago I said my farewell to the one pre-existing friend in Osaka, who over the weeks got me settled in, oriented me to the city, ingrained in my memory a number of "good"--by his Italian standards--coffee shops, then packed up himself for rural Nippon.</div><div><br></div><div>For a short moment, I thought that my time to be truly solitary had come. That the Universe, in her great infinite wisdom, had decided it was time to be on my own.</div><div><br></div><div>It's true, I've an aversion to "being on my own." I admit, this needs some soulful investigation, but so long as the fates keep throwing loving and beautiful people my way, I'm certainly not going to deny such gifts and blessings. </div><div><br></div><div>Plus, there is something so exciting about receiving a guest. Today, as I cleaned my kitchen cubbies, hoovered my sparse little room and prepared an extra sleeping mat, I felt excitement for my coming visitor. How delightful it was to have a space, however small, to offer to a friend. </div><div><br></div><div>The visit itself I know will be a time of powerful sharing. I'm excited to share a bit of my adventure here and to make memories of Japan with a dear friend. Also, I look forward to being in the company of someone who's been there with me, in the trenches of life's crazy, even over long distances. </div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><pre class="lc" style="padding: 0px 0px 0px 5px; border-top-width: 0px; text-align: -webkit-left; "><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto; "><br></div></pre></div></div>as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4403527071236364803.post-25061920405865996632013-08-26T01:13:00.004+05:302013-08-26T08:50:25.478+05:30obon and offering to the ancestors<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Japanese cemetery at Arayashima, Kyoto.</td></tr>
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This may be among my first real Japan posts. The last few may have been written in Osaka, where I've been based since the first of August, but most were written about a different time and a different place. Though I'm sure there's more to glean and excavate from the past months in Europe, I'm also feeling that I've expunged a crucial amount of emotional backlog and that there is a little more space to be in the present.<br />
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And at present, I'm in Japan. And everyday here feels a little like a miracle. Two months ago, just as my so-called-plans began to disintegrate and I was asking myself while sitting at a remote Pyranean village in Spain "what to do now?" one email came from Osaka where a mysore yoga program needed a substitute teacher and would I like to be that person?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arashiyama, Kyoto.</td></tr>
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So, here I am. Here and now present, teaching a mysore program at Spirit Yoga International School, where esteemed friends and fellow practitioners have taught before me, sharing a process which I love so deeply, which has moved me to no ends, which continues to push me to the edge and transform me whether I like it or not, a process which I ultimately like, look for, and invite on a daily basis.</div>
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And everyday is an offering to moving forward.<br />
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Ironically, the present continues to link to the past. Perhaps this is one of the challenges of being me, I think too much. I process. A lot. I've been given a lot of advice too. To not think so much. Easier said than done--but rather than going against my own nature, I am trying to work with it, trying to get this thinking mind to get on my onward moving bandwagon.<br />
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What I am coming to realize more and more is that being present isn't about forgetting the past, or disregarding the past. Rather, it's about seeing the past as past, honoring it for what it is, taking the lessons that it has given, and then, finally, letting it go. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the Dimonji at a distance.</td></tr>
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A couple of Saturdays ago, I took my first trip out of Osaka to nearby Kyoto for Gozan no Okuribi, the culminating event for Obon festivities in the area, a sacred time to honor one's ancestors, to release them from suffering in the realm of hungry ghosts and to remember the offerings that these ancestors made. Traditionally, Okuribi bonfires are lit on the slopes of Kyoto's mountainsides to remember and release the spirits of the ancestors.</div>
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I loved the idea! I had my own spirits of the not so recent past to release, poor tortured souls in the realm of the hungry ghosts. But Obon also had me thinking about my ancestors too as we navigated the crowds along the river, many of whom were not in a good vantage point to see the bonfires.<br />
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In the Philippines, we have a similar but more Catholic tradition that falls on All Saints' and All Souls' Day, November 1 and 2 of every year where we go to visit departed family members in their grave sites. We spend some time there, we pray and eat--often it's a grave yard picnic sort of affair. Then we go. We don't recall so much the spirits of far off ancestors, but loved ones we remember, we miss. And for many like myself, the tradition triggers an automatic response, rather than one that sparks deep contemplation and real connection.<br />
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In Japan, I realize, Obon has a similar effect. It is widely observed, but the depth of which is not commonly touched by those who perceive it as archaic or those who practice it by rote. The tradition continues but some of the greater significance is a little lost. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kyoto: river flows, purifies...</td></tr>
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The bonfires themselves were hard to see. We found twice, accidentally, spots in which to get a faint view from a particular angle. But the fires of intention have their moment and burn out quickly.<br />
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As I wandered the streets of Kyoto, my friend Andrea leading us to various spots where we might look upon one of the Dimonji, the giant characters burning into the mountain, I wondered about the significance of Obon in the context of my own life. As a tourist, I was looking for a sight-seeing opportunity. But as a life-explorer, however, a different way of seeing--a healthier way of understanding and connecting with my own ghosts, with my own ancestors.<br />
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My ghosts, those wily little creatures of my own making, I understood, would continue to shadow me for as long as I allowed them. I had breathed life into them. And I was solely responsible now to deconstruct them, to release them from my mind and to take away their power--or rather to take back my own.<br />
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As for my ancestors, I realized that I had none that I could recall directly. I know so little of my family's history. I didn't even get much of a chance to really know my own grandmothers while they were living and no opportunity at all to meet my grandfathers.<br />
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What I feel, however, is this: my ancestors are my forebearers, they are the ones who came before me, they are the countless men and women who grappled with their own ghosts; journeymen (and women too, women, especially) who courageously walked their path and those who struggled to do so; writers who wrote and writers who didn't; women who fought for their personal sovereignty and famously failed and those who with quiet grace claimed their own genuine femininity.<br />
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All those who have come before me are my ancestors, the steps I walk upon now have been laid down by them. It is them whom I acknowledge, whom I honor. It is to them that I supplicate, that I may learn from their struggles and their victories, that my missteps--because there will inevitably be more of them--be lessons in love rather than mistakes, that their blessings are like flowers strewn on this unpaved dirt road I've chosen, that their love which shines like a light from within me continue to help me banish my own shadows. That they can rest now, too, knowing that me and others like me will continue to walk their path.<br />
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The past is past--but there is a power to connecting with it, feeding a human need to honor and embrace it, allowing it to be the inspiration that it can be rather than the heavy weight we often carry.</div>
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as always kazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08056805975190045903noreply@blogger.com0