The Shit and I

One day while walking through the path leading to my house, a piece of dog shit appeared.

I continued to walk, and went home.

Day in day out, whenever I ventured out or returned home, the shit and I met.

When walking in the dark, I exercised a bit more caution while treading on the path.

Yet continued to co-exist with the shit that has occupied a rather predominant space on my path.

A few more sunny days later, the shit turned dry.

By this time, my son and I have already learned to harmoniously live with the shit on our path.

We know its exact place and even in darkness, we no longer fear its existence.

One day, rain falls.

And the piece of shit disintegrated.

I took a broom and swept everything clean from my path.

Photo: CK (Secret Nine Productions)

Words from a woman

Tonight I write as a human being and a woman.

There are so many moments when life is a deep fascination that I am immersed in deep play and awe.  I am humbled constantly at the marvels and the serendipity that life brings.  From the moment my eyes open in the morning, until silence ensures after my son falls asleep every night, each heartbeat is a miracle.  There is a voice within my heart, it is what we know as Grace.  It has been there since antiquity, it is my friend, my teacher, my lover.  Yes, I have many a times chosen to disregard this voice, I have chosen to exercise what humans mistakenly think of as free-will; I have done many deeds of a silent rebel.  Yet this voice has not forsaken me.  It has picked me up in the moments of deepest despair, it continues to guide when the mind wishes to take over.

Tonight this voice has told me to keep walking.  Even though I perceive this to be a solitary journey, it is important to keep the feet moving.  ”But I enjoy solitude”, I replied.  ”We know you do”, the voice spoke.  ”Dear, we know you do, and that is why you have chosen such a lifestyle.  Yet we also know there are moments when you also dearly treasure human contact.  We know you feel alone, but in truth, you are never alone.  We know you only wish to walk side by side with someone else, to be met as who you are, without compromise.”

“It is important that you keep walking, even though you may not comprehend at this moment.  The path of glory is one from the inner heart, it cannot be explained in logic or mental processes.  If each step is an impulse from the heart, there can be no wrong moves and you will not be giving more than you can.  When you feel over exhausted, go back into the heart and find out what has not been impulsed from there.  If you cannot find out for yourself, be self assured that no one else can.  It is important that this moment, you return within.  Do not look outside for an illusive savior, no one out there can save you, but yourself.  No love you receive from the external can fill you, but by returning to the love you are within.  Forget this not.”

I am grateful life has kept me grounded here with all my human and motherly duties to fulfill.  With Grace, all is beauty.  I am grateful that aloneness has once again opened up a brand new world for me.  I can only wish that with each step I take, the project in progress, will unfold more through one’s blossoming awareness.  And that one day, what is strength, hardened like diamond over years and years of compression, can be transformed fully into brilliance and radiance that is our femaleness.

photo: CK (Secret Nine Productions)

Strength

Time has condensed so much recently.

I have forgotten how wonderful it is to physically connect with friends to share our brotherhood and sisterhood.  I have forgotten there is always an exception to what we know as routine.  I have forgotten that not sleeping as many hours in exchange for soulful conversation is so well worth it.  I have forgotten that human contact can actually be very sweet.  I have forgotten that it is really a treat to have food on the table without having to cook!  I have forgotten that deep strength is to be able to stop at times, and marvel at our fragile vulnerability.

The growth of the planet, of each individual is accelerated immensely, and it is the pledge of many to move forward.  A quick growth sometimes neglects the child within, who only hopes to hold on tight to mommy and never letting go.  And it is in true strength, that this child is honored, and listened to with full attention when she keeps pulling the adult’s sleeve, wishing to talk.

On the path, no one can give us strength.  No one can make us stronger or less afraid.  Neither can strength be feigned or masked or forced upon.  Traumas, dramas do  not necessarily build strength either.  A hard-shelled exterior does not always mean one is strong.

True strength is to connect back to the fire of our heart, and live and walk each moment of this life with grace.  It is to honor each moment of fragility, every mistake, repeated falls and bruises, yet have sufficient grace to make the best of it.  It is to live the totality of what we have in each moment in time.  Emotions do not disappear suddenly one day, if they are not honored, to their full totality, they will haunt you forever; you can choose to disregard them, but not for long.  Also choose to honor emotions in your solitary time and space so as to not invade another being with this energy, while remembering that in emotions, there is no love.  Thus allow yourself the time to honor them, and move on back into, the totality of love.

On this day I wish to honor a friend who has shown me deep strength in life.  May what he is going through be guided by the immense grace in his heart.

Feel

When one feels there is no turning back, this could be one of the reasons for my perpetual postponement in writing about this experience.

When one feels there is no stopping, it is an outrageously overwhelming way to live; and to me, the only way I wish to live.

Feelings are not emotions.

Feelings come from our inner-most heart; emotions are results of our judgments on the feelings, they are an re-interpretation rather than the truth.

When I am afraid to feel, it is really the emotions that I fear.

Yet when I am afraid to feel, my heart is asked to contract.  I can’t feel the life I am entitled to.

I asked my soul to allow me to truly feel, to not be led astray by emotions, but to feel all that life is offering.

Many times my feelings are still tightly intertwined with deep emotional attachments, there are no words for utter agony or ecstasy; yet I only wish to feel more, until the mixed feelings become clean and will one day remain pure and detached.

When we feel, there is a knowing.  There is no hesitation nor doubt.  Everyone and everything is interconnected, the vision is spherical and we can see what it means to be one.  If everyone feels with their inner-most heart, there could never be separation.  There would not be individual ideals, beliefs, judgments which bridge us further and further away from true self-love, that is being separated from our soul.  Without knowing how to love oneself, we would not know how to love another.

Feeling has brought me closest to love.  Love in its truest sense, is not what we believe it to be.  In the purest and most divine state of love, love is unemotional.  There is no grasping, no desiring, no doing, no self.  And if I had been misled for my whole life until now, I wish to begin to feel again, so as to remember once again…

About Love.

About the part of me which is never separate from the divine.

Photo: www.jeffreychanworkshop.com

Job

When people ask me what I do, they always expect an answer in terms of an industry, a field or a profession.  I think I always disappoint them.

My full time job is to discover myself.  To discover doesn’t mean to find out what hidden talents or marketable traits I have overlooked.  Rather, to discover myself is to be with myself in solitude, with the least distraction, so I can be shocked at all the unimaginable demons I have within.  Why would I wish to face my own demons when I can numb myself with the latest trends or a high paid profession or unending glitz?  Because I do not know how to continue if I don’t empty my vessel and paint on a fresh canvas from time to time.  Virgos really don’t do so well with cluttering.

I heard someone say today that those who say it is an easy way out for people opting solitary meditation has probably never tried it, as most people would not be able to face their naked selves.  Looking at ourselves naked, as is, in entirety, is probably the hardest, and only work I wish to be doing.  It is the only thing worthwhile in the existence of life.  And yes, all the times I have looked at myself truthfully, I was shocked to a state of almost non-recovery.  Only when I can accept that as myself, did any healing begin.  And knowing that for some parts of ourselves, the wound IS our healing, has altogether transcended the concept of healing for me.

I am hoping to do a course on dreaming, and as preparation for the course, I had to explain where I would like to begin the course from.  What it is that I wish to look into more.  I wrote back without taking a breath saying, I would like to begin in my confusion, fragmentation and indecision.  I may not own much clarity at the moment, but I am clear that I am confused, and I am in a state of knowing nothing.  Everything I thought I knew, I thought guided me, I felt I had lost; I am walking through each day without much navigation.  This is all the clarity I have and I will begin here.

Many people believe to go through life we have to be occupied every moment.  I believe otherwise.  I certainly could spend the entire day just gazing out the water sitting on the couch in my living room.  Many misinterpret it as doing nothing.  Often I am shocked and I cannot sleep, because what comes up is nothing anyone would like to witness.  But this is my life, my beingness, my work, my job…whatever you wish to call it, and this is all that is ever required of me, it is to be who I am.  All the healing, all the service begin; all the worlds open, when I can see and be with no illusion, who I am.  That is all that is ever required of me in this experience of life.

Thank You

Thank you for each moment of remembrance in gratitude.

Thank you for experiencing again that sleep is an instinct.

Thank you for love that is given and received for no reason and no expectations.

Thank you for the possibility of being at ease in all realities and dimensions.

Thank you for the power of a first dream.

Thank you for the excitement and joy of who I am here to be and to do.

Thank you for family, brothers and sisters, near and far.

Thank you for the compass that brings me back even though it took one limb, one bone at a time.

Thank you for communion and solitude.

Thank you for children’s hearts.

Thank you for sunshine, thank you for fire.

Thank you for rain and all cloudy days.

Thank you for earthquakes and storms that began in our hearts.

Thank you for the split second of deep peace, between breaths.

Thank you for mountains and lakes and the energies of all spirits.

Thank you for life, death and rebirth.

Experiencing reality

Experiences are perpetually new, that is why they are experiences.

Recently, I have had a few of those.  I have returned to my birth place with my son after a few months of wandering on the other side of the world.  He has gone back to school and I have returned to being a full time mother.  Apart from a short time, I have never been only a mother in this part of the planet.  I have always put more priority in other things.  After travelling for two months with him, those things have lost their priority in my life.  I am still working, but if I organize my time better, I can also cook breakfast, bring him to school, see him at lunch, grocery shop, pick him up after school, teach him his homework, cook dinner, hang out with him at night at the same time.

I have also begun working everywhere I can.  With my computer, I work when I am taking the ferry, I write when I sit in a cafe, I communicate with people far away when eating a rice lunch in a local restaurant, I even sit on the side of the road to reply emails.  This is a very surreal experience for me.  It has dissolved but at the same time expanded the concept of home and office immensely.  I could be anywhere honestly, but I could be doing everything I used to be doing sitting in an office, or lounging at home previously.

I used to put deep importance of what is the concept of “home”.  Throughout the travelling and the working on the road, this concept has gradually but surely dissolved into less of a physical entity.  It is true that I still dislike living off from suitcases (even in hotels, I like to take everything out and organize them in closets, drawers), but where I live and work, seems to be less rigid that I thought it had to be.  A “home” is more what I have for my son, who likes his own bed and his own special place for toys, but for myself, I have become less attached to.

This moment while I am writing this blog, I have chosen to sit in the fierce sun, on concrete ground.  There is much green around and eagles hovering above.  There is no one around, but ants come close.  I hear the distant airplanes and feel the November breeze.  And I would probably have written something different, had I chose to sit in a different place.  Realities truly are flexible.

Photo: Andre Eichman

Tears and Writing

Paulo Coelho once wrote: tears are words that need to be written.  When someone asks me to speak about the reason for my tears, the mouth usually is not equipped to do so.  But when I sit in silence, without uttering a single word, the fingers begin to open the door for my understanding.

Some people believe tears are a way of cleansing, it happens only because some energy needs to be released.  There have been many incidents when I couldn’t open my mouth to express, and the tears helped me in a way to channel what is building up within.  Yet it was only when I began to write also, that I understood the unspoken passion and debilitating grief within the tears.  Crying has allowed for a small channel to be opened, but it also distracts me from facing what it is that is necessary.  Because when I cry, the accompanying emotions of lack overwhelm, blinding and overtaking all, when consciousness is weak, all can be carried away by tears.

I do not wish my tears to carry everything away, I do not wish to cry because of certain judgments or attachments emotionally.  I wish my tears to open me into something I have not yet ventured.  It may be a part of myself I hadn’t wish to visit, or it could be a state that is startlingly foreign.  I do not wish to cry because of feeling something is lost, be it time or integrity; but I am happy to allow the tears to show me that which is beyond what the surface feels or looks like.  Perhaps tears can somehow also clean and smooth over the ridges in the mind, perhaps they can also slow down and lull the maddening thoughts.

All things in life is to allow us to discover more about who we have come here to be.  It is not worth it to cry over what you feel you have not yet discovered, because the tears, the laughter, the silence, the madness, the incessant imprisoning thoughts, the dance, the song, the alienation, the communion, the aloneness, the unity, the love, the fear, the freedom all bring us closer to who we are.

Life

My Peruvian friend asked me, “How much of the real life of Peru do you know?”

This scene kept playing and re-playing within my memory.  We were on a local bus, going from Cusco to Pisac.

Not many tourists have been on a local bus.  I have been on buses that took you on short trips, they are usually the size of mini-buses in Hong Kong.  And the one we were on during this episode, was one which took us on relatively longer trips.  We were to ride in this bus for around 2 hours and it was the size of a tour coach.

I loved the local buses.  I don’t think many foreigners would share my sentiment, my son certainly didn’t.  Being on the local buses meant being close and cramped with everyone else.  You would be amazed at how many people these buses could actually fit.  The idea of personal space disintegrates, yet somehow, there is something very nice about this–in this country, with these people.  On this particular day, my friend, myself, and our 2 children shared the space on the steps near the door.  I had to constantly get up for people to get on or get off.  My son was getting very annoyed, as he had never experienced such a ride in his life.  But this is life to many of the Peruvians.

Within the poverty and the difficulty of life, somehow there is a closeness within the people.  People look out for each other.  I once met a man who delivered a bottle of gas for the house I was staying in, who spoke english because he has lived in Canada for many years.  We chatted for no more than a few minutes, yet he offered his help if I ever had any questions.  I have met many beautiful people in Peru.  If I ask for help, not only do the people offer help, they go out of their way to make sure everything is well and good.  A lady in an internet shop became our friend, not only did she give me a 50% discount, her husband helped me with numerous computer questions and their sons introduced new games to my son.  People we met in the squares became good friends with my son, it was truly lovely to run into them every once in a while, so they can say hi with their special hand gestures.  Brothers and sisters opened their houses to us like family, which we are forever grateful for.

I do not know how much of the real life of Peru I know.  I may have only glimpsed a little of the truth, and perhaps what I have experienced is still somehow veiled.  All I know is all of this has made me wish to understand more.

Spirit

I found myself again yesterday.

I slid down a big slide over and over again.  And I remembered how free and happy my spirit is.

I remembered how much joy I have once experienced, that every moment I simply wished to love.  I remembered that I dared each moment, to live fuller, to grow deeper.  I remembered all the wonder, the colors, the beauty and the music.  I remembered there is no fear, only invincibility.  There is only light and the passion to shine.

In the path of life, we forget.  Our feelings and our thoughts begin to disconnect.  We begin to expect, and we also start to be disappointed.  First we forget who we are.  But we only see that through the discontent we feel in the rest of the world.  We begin to see so many flaws in the people close to us, we begin to criticize, and believe we deserve better.  We become unhappy.

In the eyes of the spirit, everything is perfect.  Everyone is all beautiful.  Nothing is ever flawed.  There are no mistakes and no complaints.  And it is through these eyes, that I am now seeing you.