preparing the altar, swamiji's mahasamadhi

Preparing the altar for puja. Fruits are washed.
Flowers will be bought and gently placed
before Swamiji.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.   

borrowed wisdom from Stevie Nicks

Song for the moment, Landslide:


I took my love and I took it down 
I climbed a mountain and I turned around 
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills 
'Till the landslide brought me down 

Oh, mirror in the sky 
What is love? 
Can the child within my heart rise above? 
Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides? 
Can I handle the seasons of my life? 

Mmm Mmm... 

Well, I've been afraid of changing 
'Cause I've built my life around you 
But time makes you bolder 
Children get older 
I'm getting older too 

Well, I've been afraid of changing 
'Cause I, I built my life around you 
But time makes you bolder 
Children get older 
I'm getting older too 
I'm getting older too 

So, take my love, take it down 
Oh climb a mountain and turn around 
If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills 
Well the landslide will bring you down, down 

And If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills 
Well maybe the landslide will bring it down 
Oh oh, the landslide will bring it down

the visit

At the arrival's gate, Kansai airport...

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

obon and offering to the ancestors

Japanese cemetery at Arayashima, Kyoto.

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.

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?

Arashiyama, Kyoto.

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.

And everyday is an offering to moving forward.

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.

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. 

One of the Dimonji at a distance.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

Kyoto: river flows, purifies...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

bathing in full-ness

Full moon over Osaka as I cycled home from onsen.

Sometimes, the full moon makes me want to howl, or yell, or run amok but there are other times its energy is much more subtle. This last full moon, August 21, had me singing.

Ever since I started observing them, moon days have taken special shape, each one special to the month or season, each one marking with uncanny precision a new or full-filling part of my own personal cycle.

Last Wednesday was a blue full moon--blue because it's a part of a season of full moons. I observed this full moon evening by going with some students to an onsen or Japanese bath house. And though the visit was not intentionally to celebrate the moon cycle, I was tickled at the synchronicity of it.

Here I was in the company of women: Naked, washing with ritual precision, so much attention to loving one's body, to purifying first the external skin, then slowly negotiating out internal toxins as one moves from hot bath to cold bath, sauna or steam room. Then to just lie there, under the night sky, feeling the heat of hot water on rock, breathing. Being. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Just relaxing into my own body.

There is so much beauty in bathing, in the act of it, in the taking of time.  Of giving one's self time and space to simply be. It is an act of loving oneself.

I had to ask myself: how much time do we really give to ourselves in this way? (It's nice to be in a culture where going to take baths is a common practice. I know that the Japanese work hard, but they also take their down-time seriously, as well.)

And as we give to ourselves, as we nourish our selves and answer our own needs, we have more, more for ourselves and more for others, more to give, more to share.

And even though embodying my fullness continues to be a (life-long) project, moments such as these remind me that I am simply cycling. That becoming full is a part of a process. That, at times, we must empty to make space for newness.

So, bathing with the moon in its fullness had me singing. Singing on the bike ride home. Singing on my rooftop to the blur of luminous white peeking through the cloudy night sky, knowing that the fullness is there, whether or not I could see it. 

when one door closes...

Light streaming through into the darkness. Monte Perdido
National Park in the Araganese Spanish Pyranese.

It's true what they say about doors. How when one door closes another one opens. And not just one door but many.

Except my story isn't isn't exactly about doors, it is about people. Actually, it isn't' t about people either. It is actually about Love.

We humans are like doors. We contract and close, we expand and open. Sometimes this happens consciously, other times unconsciously. And through us, when we make it so, when we allow for it, love passes. So my story starts when one door closes, when the person with whom I was exploring decides to close the door behind him, I am left on the other side: door in face. Maybe he is contracting, maybe he is expanding--I accept that's his story.

My story, this one part anyway, starts when one path of love and light and transformation suddenly becomes impassable. A relationship ends and all that is warm and loving between two people is sucked into a void. What was once open is closed. And what happens then?

I have been writing for some time now about love. And I'm convinced through my own self-exploration, by this constant compulsion for putting my heart out there that real Love, real grace knows no boundaries. How it honors the free will of us mere humans, but also has a will of its own. It is beyond us. I believe that love exists before us and will continue existing when we are gone. It is never diminished, and if anything, it is constantly expanding. And that we simply experience it in different ways. Our perception of love is conditional. Though love itself is without condition.

And so a door closes. And for a split second, I feel darkness. Then one door opens. Then another. Then another. And light, light just floods in. Because, love, like flowing water, will find a way. How to explain that the rejection of one person can result in me falling in love with over a dozen people? Not necessarily in a romantic way, but really discovering love through others, through people's goodness, their gifts, their peculiarities that make them so special.

I can only say that I was so focused on perceiving love in one particular form, in one particular direction, how for sometime, a beautiful time, my attention was on one person. But as he left, the space which he so lovingly once occupied filled up so quickly, so magically with such a motley crew of young love, of new friendships, of old bonds renewed, of teaching connections, of new cities and countries and opportunities that seem to be made just for me.

I still sometimes feel that door on my face, and annoyingly, I continue to feel it smite me occasionally. But I also see the many doors that have opened because of it, the open hearts of many who appeared seemingly out of nowhere to hold me, to hold my hand, to give me messages of love. How in this short span of time, of loss--supposedly--I have actually connected deeply with so many people and in ways that I might not have done, that the opportunity would not have been present, had I been focused on just one love nor would I have been vulnerable enough to expose myself and invite such love from others.

It is a true testament to how beautiful the heart is, how wonderful people are, how when one sees someone struggling--as I have been seen--people are inspired to help, to give so generously, so without question or condition. And as these now dear friends see me fight for myself, see me rise to the challenge of finding who I am in all this, they are inspired to celebrate. They are celebrating with me, they are cheering me on. And how amazing is that! How grateful I feel!

The love from others and, yes, even from that one closed door, because even in the closing I know there is love there, has reminded me to look deeper into the love that I have for myself and how this needs continued work and attention. And how my perception of love should not be so narrow, that recognizing the myriad offerings of love out there should not be a side effect of loss but rather of fullness.

Love. Always present. Its messengers change, from time to time, however. But love, itself, is constant. We just have to continue to believe, to have presence enough to see it in whatever form it comes. To accept it graciously when it does. To value it. To respect it. To honor it. To allow it to teach us what it is about, to teach us how to love, and how to truly embody it in our very soul and being.

magkaisa, unite, be one

Almost a month ago, we were sharing songs in satsang in Casa Cuadrau in the Spanish Pyranees, easily one of my top places on the planet--even during the most difficult of circumstances. Boris Gueorguiev, an excellent ashtanga teacher from Vienna and just plain sweet man, was leading the evening's singing by inviting participants from different countries to sing a song. Katia sang a song from Mexico, ironically with a Viennese tune, Chin Chin sang a folk song from China, while Roopa sang a bhajan. Me, I'm Filipino-American, but above either nationalities, I'm Chicken!

It's a real issue, my lack of self-confidence when it comes to singing because I actually love to sing. And my time in Casa Cuadrau has definitely highlighted some issues of self-worth and how I get nervous when I'm put on the spot. There's a real fearfulness of being judged, especially when you know that someone in the room is actually judging you. I do recognize though that the fear is in the mind. That I need to work through my own issues: why do I let my fears diminish me, separate me from my ability to simply be?

I did think about it. If I were brave enough what would I share? I didn't grow up in the Philippines. And can barely bumble through the national anthem let alone pull out a repertoire of Filipino folk songs. But there is one Filipino song from my childhood that I remember pretty well and had I known the lyrics to it, I might have had the courage to share. A couple of days ago, I looked it up. 

It's not Shakespeare, especially when translated into English, mind you. It's a little cheesy, and the tune...well, it's in the pop genre of 80's Filipino music--pop, Filipino music, and 80's, a crazy combination. Released during the People Power Revolution in 1986, it greatly inspired the 10-year old me. My mother tells as story of how I went missing after school during this time, and that apparently I had asked the driver to take me to a rally. I didn't actually make it to any of the rallies, but I wore the signature yellow of the time and I had a cassette tape of the song Magkaisa, which means "Unite."

Looking at the lyrics, a good long time between then and now, makes me just smile because it is still so clear why I loved this song. And how at 10, I was surely always meant to go down this path of learning and sharing yoga. How these lyrics of unity, of one-ness, of hope, of faith and of love have always been a part of me. What stirred me at 10, was this taste of it, and what stirs me now is knowing that even when I don't entirely feel it all the time, even when I struggle, the potential is always there, always waiting to be invited, welcomed and embraced.

Isa lang ang ugat na ating pinagmulan

Tayong lahat ay magkakalahi

Sa unos at agos ay huwag padadala

My translation:

There is only one root from where we've come

We are from one seed

No need to get carried away by the storms, by the waves

I love how the world works. I love how such simple things can draw us back to our center. How looking at Pinoy pop song lyric circa 1986 can help me connect with a timeless philosophy and remind me that all is actually well, that the seas of change may be rough going, but there's no need to get carried away, that connection is magic.

Today has actually been one of those magical days. Timing has been really amazing. Just as I was feeling doubtful, I've received some beautiful, heart-full messages and affirmations that sharing my process so openly online is benefitting others as well. Turned on the roaming on my phone to exchange one text message with one of my favorite spiritual advisors Ate (big sister) Lily, also known as the Little Broom, who sent me a beautiful prayer. Connection is magic. 

Today, I also wrote to a friend who found me online yesterday. Someone I knew for a year a long while ago when we were both studying in Warwick, England in the UC education abroad program. And she, too, had a story of transformation. Connection is magic.

Maybe next time someone asks me to share a song, I won't be shy or afraid because connection, the universe keeps on reminding me, is magic. And this magic is precious.

Being one, coming together in love melts separation, doubt and fear, uniting--whether it's internal integration or an external connection--yields a new dawn, a new day. "Bagong umaga, Bagong araw."  



Lyrics of the song in its original Tagalog and in English translation is below. 

Magkaisa

Ngayon ganap ang hirap sa mundo

Unawa ang kailangan ng tao

Ang pagmamahal sa kapwa'y ilaan

Isa lang ang ugat na ating pinagmulan

Tayong lahat ay magkakalahi

Sa unos at agos ay huwag padadala

Panahon na (may pag-asa kang matatanaw)

Ng pagkakaisa (bagong umaga, bagong araw)

Kahit ito (sa atin Siya'y nagmamahal)

Ay hirap at dusa

Magkaisa (may pag-asa kang matatanaw)

At magsama (bagong umaga, bagong araw)

Kapit-kamay (sa atin Siya'y nagmamahal)

Sa bagong pag-asa

Ngayon may pag-asang natatanaw

May bagong araw, bagong umaga

Pagmamahal ng Diyos, isipin mo tuwina

Panahon na (may pag-asa kang matatanaw)

Ng pagkakaisa (bagong umaga, bagong araw)

Kahit ito (sa atin Siya'y nagmamahal)

Ay hirap at dusa

Magkaisa (may pag-asa kang matatanaw)

At magsama (bagong umaga, bagong araw)

Kapit-kamay (sa atin Siya'y nagmamahal)

Sa bagong pag-asa

Magkaisa (may pag-asa kang matatanaw)

At magsama (bagong umaga, bagong araw)

Kapit-kamay (sa atin Siya'y nagmamahal)

Sa bagong pag-asa

To Unite

Now it is evident that the world's suffering

What we need is understanding

Let us give love and compassion to others

We came from only one root

We are all just humans

In the midst of the storm and waves, Don't lose hope

It is time (Hope is just around the corner)

for Unity (A new morning, a new day)

Even if this (He loves each of us)

Is all pain and suffering

Let us Unite (Hope is just around the corner)

And march together (A new morning, a new day)

Lets hold hands (He loves each of us)

In the newly found Hope

Now Hope can be seen

A new day, a new morning

God's everlasting love, Keep in mind always

It is time (Hope is just around the corner)

for Unity (A new morning, a new day)

Even if this (He loves each of us)

Is all pain and suffering

Let us Unite (Hope is just around the corner)

And march together (A new morning, a new day)

Lets hold hands (He loves each of us)

In the newly found Hope

Let us Unite (Hope is just around the corner)

And march together (A new morning, a new day)

Lets hold hands (He loves each of us)

In the newly found Hope

(http://lyricstranslate.com/en/magkaisa-let-us-unite.html)