Adventure calls but its voice can only be felt. It’s a feather tickling the heart and a longing in the belly. Those who follow the call arrive in their lives with masks of comedy and tragedy tucked in their back pockets, showing those behind of their past.
For those who walk the lonely path toward meaning offer the opposites to the present like a sacrifice to the gods on the altar of fear. Babylon should be so lucky to imbibe the river’s floods.
Drink up. Suck upon the marrow of time.
Let the city unfold your perceptions as a lover opens a letter. Retreat into yourself but watch. There are patterns, signs, and ways of thinking. Discern them all! Allow the blossom of your heart to unfold like the petals of a flower seeking the sun. Learn the ways of the world but don’t become those ways. Walk your own path and feel those who’ve passed by.
Looking, searching for myself in others, I find the streets.
Uptown and downtown, I walk along designed graph paper, seeking.
The seer sees.
The seeker seeks.
The bird, he sings,
And the tree, she weeps.
Oh city, take me under your wing.
Tell me your secrets like the train passes the breeze.
What is the rhythm of life?
Remember, Atlas shrugged, too.
Seeking an answer is like trying to understand the tree by only looking into its shadow.
In the silence, the beat, butterfly wings pulsing at your heart.
Witness sacred in mundane.
Take care of yourself and wear your apron.
Sweep your own floors.
Make dinner as you linger in another’s depth.
See the resonance – the relics and the seeds.
Look to the tree, inspiration between limbs. It holds up the sky where you shine.
Sometimes we make important life decisions based on what we think we should do. The “should” can become a barometer for being loved or accepted by others. Much of my life was spent as a purposeful outsider… Never wanting to be adopted into one group, I joined them all. It is like how I can’t choose my favorite color – wouldn’t green get its feelings hurt if I chose pink?
While working in an art gallery and at a museum, I found yoga. Finally, something pure enough for me to want to dig my teeth into. I said my vows, got my membership card and thought of how to best serve yoga itself. I wanted to give people something to look up to… I wanted to be a leader. I wanted to be heard.
So I traded in my vintage hat collection for an ascetic life, trying to free myself from desires and craving. I cleansed. I purified. I tried to honor what the yogic teachings offered me. Glamour and elegance no longer mattered to me. I wanted to embody the perfect yogi. As a girly girl who started wearing high heels before she could ride a bike, it was a stretch to stop wearing make up, but I did.
I became obsessed with my ideal of what I thought I should be. My self-esteem was garnered from an external perception and I somehow always fell short.
All this did is isolate me further from my own truth: anything other than following your heart is a form of self-deception. I was too truthful outwardly to others but little by little, I lied to my heart.
I’ve embraced more of myself – who I am beyond archetypes and titles – and my art is now reflecting my heart instead of my issues. It’s ok to be in love with who I really am and at the end of the day, I’m the only one who is keeping score.
I don’t want to be an ascetic. That isn’t the key to happiness. Happiness lives in the space. Happiness lives in gratitude… Fall down on your knees kind of gratitude. Find the things that make your heart smile and do more of that. I don’t want to be a part of anything less than helping people remember this. We all know it, we just need to be reminded – everything is cool.
Score one for me – I can finally put on my cocktail dress, open a bottle of champagne and do yoga in my favorite pair of heels. Ok so it wasn’t the most comfortable of endeavors, but you get the point, right?
I’d rather stand on my head than talk about the weather.
What is love but the preamble to loss? A sacred contract extracting attachment that pierces the experience of now. Dancing with fools was a thing of the past. Co-creation of the unconventional, they imagined their hieros gamos. Rules and boundaries are made, not borrowed. She holds a heart to be opened, not broken.
Life is really simple; you live and you die. Life’s riches come from attachment and the learning of another is the sweetness of life. She wants to feel the richness of life’s color and know the sound of the vibration. So many possibilities as Spring announced her arrival. The tree is lush and she wants to be seen beyond the leaves.
What causes a sigh?
What brings the ache?
Where is the longing?
How does one wake up?
Where is the line of acceptance
and when does one keep going?
What is the shadow but an expression of fallen light?
