nying thak pa nay thuk ji che

the beauty of this one majestic moment cannot be overlooked
for the only honorable thing to do with that which is sacred
is to give it away, freely
do not protest enlightenment
for it serves no purpose to shrink your own brilliance
my own brilliance, I guess
I am to speak only from my own experience.

I experience a cortisol-lowering relaxation in my sympathetic nervous system
that part of my back that doesn't want to bend
as the lamas and geshes and rinpoche come
to meditate over sand paintings
I sit on a soft couch and watch
seeing if i can make my breath as soft as theirs
no, not this time.
they look up at me and smile with recognition, even give me a wave
and i am taken aback
the reincarnated looking at my eyes
what do you see?
I've not met a bishop who can command my every attention
as these can, though their rank I know not
and their faces I can only distinguish at times
molding in my dreams.

thuk ji che, rinpoche
this one mystical moment
a Sacred gift
a Sacred life
and who am I?
on this dark west, turtle island
centuries in the making
infused with the quiet breath
the deepest prayers
the force of positive energy
thrown into water
scattered so it might be shared
for it will flow, slowly, eventually
through rivers into oceans
which connect us all.

Do not be afraid. I am with you. I am here.

Long time, no talk.
Surrender is the opposite of giving up.

Yes, I am living in Milwaukee. Still? Maybe that's the wrong question. Always changing, deepening, and there is no going back to old ways of being.
Working some jobs, but my real work is yoga and music making. I've been writing and co-writing songs and playing them out. Its tremendous fun, and outrageous joyfulness. Real work. Connected to the ground.

I am more myself than ever.

I am traveling to India next week with a friend of mine. A long trip to deliver tea to a old friend of her's at a Tibetan monastery. Time in a rural village with waterfalls and pineapples.


We have thought, for a long time, about the Earth as our Mother. She has nourished us, given us life, cared for us, stayed with us through it all. But what do children do to their mothers? Do we not take everything from them? Do we not drink from their bodies, take away their restful nights, ask for everything they can give and more? Do we not blame them for our pains and demand they take them away? Do we not take and take with no thought of how much we are taking? And, is this not what we have done to our Mother Earth?

Humanity has, like a child, taken everything it can from our Mother Earth, and more.

But for the child, perhaps it is appropriate to take from our mothers. The thing is, children grow up, and this relationship no longer works. Collectively, humanity needs to grow up.

Charles Eisenstein proposes as new relationship to the Earth, understanding it as Lover. When we fall in love, our lover's happiness is our happiness, her joys, our joys, her pains, our pains as well. Co-creation and mutual sharing is possible. A new way of being.

Ahh, we are falling in love, my Lover Earth.

I have traveled a great distance.

I have traveled a great distance.
A journey I neither planned nor expected.
I was locked in a smiling servitude.
The ropes had grown into my skin.
I did not recognize them.
I thought if I ripped them out, if I stood up straight, my riddled frame would collapse.

I guess I did it anyways.

You know, freedom doesn't feel good.
I don't know what I was thinking.
Not for those who have been packed in a box for decades
and shot up with tranquilizers.
The cold air burns your eyes and lungs.
Bones crack, tense muscles rip off the bone because
they don't remember relaxation.

Why did I ever believe freedom was a gift
someone else owned and had chosen not to extend to me?
As if there was ever such a thing as the
"united states,"
as if whatever that is cared about anything except power and superiority.

I am a woman,
a woman of color growing up
with her eyes open.
I am supposed to be kind and sweet and good and quiet and accommadating.
You know, I was never one of those girls who played
with dolls and dresses. I made my own arrows and shot
them at boys.
I didn't like them,
I didn't want to be them,
I was just being me.
Apparently not okay, but I guess I did it anyways.

Call me angry
Call me crazy.
Say I like to exaggerate.
Call me silly.
Call  me small.
Say it makes no difference.
Call me sinful.
Call me a slut.
Say it's all my fault.

You know, I've been told all this anger is hurting no one but me,
but that is a dirty rotten lie.
Not being angry was the most painful thing.
And not being angry was the key to keep me non-threatening.
Contained and in my place and smiling.
Fuck that shit.
I'd rather not shrink to make you feel better.
Figure it out.
I will stand as tall as I am.

I have traveled a great distance.
A journey I didn't plan.
I won't lie, it's had its horrendous moments.
And it's had its laughter.
I promise I had no idea.
I have no idea.
But I guess I'm doing it anyways.

Beatitudes Rewritten

[From daily reflections I receive by email. The Beatitudes rewritten for the human experience of unworthiness. I thought I would share.]

Blessed are those who have done all they know how to do.
When they stop, God starts.
Blessed are those who resist the urge to prove themselves.
They are the owners of true wealth.
Blessed are those who understand that life is a process of growth and healing.
They will grow, and their minds will be healed.
Blessed are those who don't beat themselves up for making mistakes.
They will live a peace-filled life.
Blessed are those who realize they are doing the best they can.
They go within themselves to find a better way.
Blessed are those who hold no against-ness.
They will be open to new ideas and insights.
Blessed are those who keep working toward a better understanding of the truth of why they are.
They will ultimately find the truth.

If I had not...

If I had not done the online search, 

if I had not questioned everything,

if I had not said no,

if I had not said yes.

If I had not showed up, signed up. 

If I had not listened,

If I had not listened to myself,

If I had not opened by eyes. 

If I had not become nauseous and angry,

if I had not cried and wept alone,

if I had not wept in another's arms,

if I had not stood up. 

If I had not taken the risk,

if I had not taken the pen,

if I had not taken my voice back,

if I had not dug in my heels

And dug into the ground. 

If I had not picked up the phone,

if I had not looked into your eyes,

if I had not read from my own book, 

if I had not told truth. 

If I had not dragged myself through the door,

if I had not let go of conviction, 

if I had not bruised my heel,

if I had not moved. 

If I had not taken off my shoes,

if I had not covered my head, 

if I had not let my hair be,

if I had not learned. 

We would still know each other. 

You or me.

Let's see who is stronger.
     You or me.
Staring at this bricked wall counting.

There is nothing to wait for,
     No one to witness, after all
     no one can.
You have seen into me. You have taken
     away my own mind, riddled
          my body with your lies.
I have carried you through time,
     cradled and caressed you,
          clenched you hoping you would
               change.
You are still the filthy bastard you
     always were.
I hate you and I hate what you did to me.
I give you back all the tremors,
     fainting spells, shaking into tears
     falling, after five minutes
          dismantled, dronding in weighted
               sleep without function.
I give you back your "you will just get used to it."
You are not my blood anymore, you
     are not my tears, you are not my
          sweat, my hands, my neck, my
               back, my brain.
I stand here, clenching for the last
time.

Let's see who is stronger.
     You or me.
Staring at this bricked wall, counting.
     One,
          Two,

               You shattered so easily.


I am moving towards an empowered incarnation of myself.

It was you.

Clutching a pillow to my chest for safekeeping
Keeping safe heart center
Attacked by arrow words piercing
my confidence and exposing my shame.
What more can you blame me for?
Thank you for your honest lies, your sincere evasion, your blaming integrity.
I needed to be reminded of my victimization.
After all, the violation wasn't enough.
Am I the one who is pitiful?
Clutching a pillow to my chest for safekeeping,
keeping safe?
Am I the one who is weak?
Speaking with light blue light?
Cut into my left arm, stab through
the right side of my back, lock my
jaw, bind my feet.
My boundaries were not the problem.
It was you.

Let me tell you something.

Let me tell you something.
If a man was robbed at gunpoint, you wouldn't ask for details. You wouldn't wonder what he was wearing, what he did to lure the thief over to him, you wouldn't say he wanted to be robbed, you wouldn't condemn him for walking down that street at that time, you wouldn't condemn him for having money with him or wearing that watch.

Let me tell you something.
You would know that robber was a fucking thief and dangerous, and that's it. You wouldn't be worried about details because you know there are many ways to rob a person.

Let me tell you something.
The details don't fucking matter. I don't have to prove to you that violence was done to me. I don't have to measure it to your denial.

Let me tell you something.
You don't think every time I meet a man, I think about whether or not this guy could rape me? You don't think I'd like to know if a guy I was around was a sexual perpetrator? You don't think my safety is more important than your reputation?

Let me tell you something.
You completely told on yourself. You are sexist, you have blamed me for what is not my fault, and you are protecting your son from his own choices and consequences. Hypocrite, I thought you worked against oppression, not with it.

Let me tell you something.
You will not tell my story. You will not steal my voice.

Let me tell you something.
You are scared. I know you said you weren't, but let's be real. You are. 

Let me tell you something.
Your pause spoke mountains. You are not doing your own work. Your response has been a joke and completely inadequate. Don't pretend otherwise.

Let me tell you something.
This was not an isolated incident, but a chain of violations. You cannot do his work. You cannot control him. You don't know him better than he knows himself. You can't. You are writing his name on the jail cell.

Let me tell you something.
How dare you be angry at me for what you son has done. How dare you. How dare you think I set him back, that I interfered, as if I have done him or you some wrong. He made his choice. He continues to make his choices. Let's not forget who assaulted who.

Let me tell you something.
I am done with you.
Fuck you.


burning through anger to transformation

today.

June 13th, 33 years ago
She gave up her life to fight
     against poverty, injustice, oppression.
I don't know if she knew the cost
     nor the kind of ripples it would
     make.
June 3rd, 10 days ago
I stand up against it too,
in a sleeveless gray shirt and naked feet.

Stop.
A glass jar in the corner of the closet
     filled with sage, smoke, and secrets.
Two poems from mother and friend.
A congested throat trying to release
     the locked voice.
Stop.

I feel his face in mine.
I lay down and feel his body on mine.
Body remembers what the mind must
      lock away safely.
A sore jaw and tight IT-bands
I am safe, she says.
Does this mean what I think it means?
A long, intentional pause.
A gentle, clear, and honest answer.
     Yes.
     Yes, it does.
What does it change?
     Everything.

Put it on a paper in a glass jar with sage smoke in the corner of
     the closet contained.
Next to flowers and pictures and
     drawings and pain.
You look like her, Jessica.
Eyes rimmed red, feet on the ground
    Practice the roots.
You know, she died.
Along with 30 other young people
Bombed from above and bulldozed
     over by soldier trained and endorsed
     in the land I now live.
They can't even pronounce her name.
Abuelito found her head a month
     later because she was one of only
     two women and the only with short
     hair.
He carried her head and a limb from
     Managua to Esteli to be buried
     with family.

You may rape me, America.
You may yell in my face and threaten
     me.
You may even kill me like you killed
     my Tia Nhordia.
No punishment you might inflict on me is worse than the punishment I put on myself by conspiring in my own diminishment. 


I stand with much deeper roots.
With wind in my screams and
     fire in my gut.
Kuan Yin in my hand and
Guadalupe on my back.
Rosaries around my neck
Prayers from black angels binding
     and casting out all evil in
    the Holy name of Jesus.
Fingers digging in my back ribs.
Salt and Holy Water and a circle
     of candles.
Singing in tongues.
Drumming and swinging with big hair.
Borrowed sweat pants.
"I pray that Jessica is safe and keeps coming back so I have someone to play with."
Stacks of court orders and pictures.
Stolen white board lists changing
    each day demanding.
The first time I call this place
     Home.

I am bringing it all,
Surrounded in light blue light.

What does courage feel like?

The secrets make us sick. 

This past Sunday, I was at my friend Peggy's house and her roommate Ryan went crazy. I can't diagnose it or anything, but we are pretty sure he had some sort of break and he became violent. The event was both domestic violence and a hate crime. To be very honest, I'm just grateful none of us got stabbed. That's the short version of the story.

I'm reflecting on the fact that this marks a 3rd major trauma in my life since graduating from college (if I count "minor" traumas, I guess it would be the 6th or 7th...wow). It's not clear to me why I'm attracting all of this, but here I am.

At one point, Ryan, a white guy, was yelling at the top of his lungs at three women of color (latina, asian, and black). Yelling that we were racist, out of touch with reality, what's wrong with you people, n-word, Asian Pride, Jim Jones. And I stood up and faced Ryan and told him to stop. I stood there in between Ryan and the others. He yelled so loud that he was spitting in my face. And he came up to me, I stood my ground, in my face, I stood my ground, past the point where I could no longer cross my eyes, I stood my ground, literally an inch from my face. He threatened me. He yelled that if I was going to act like a man, he would treat me like a man. A disgusting understanding that both to be a man requires violence and dominance, and that strength is not attributable to women. 

The story keeps going. We called the police twice and they never showed up. Ryan vandalized the entire house with racially charged hatred, all aimed at Peggy. The landlady managed to get him out and they changed the lock on the door. Everyone is safe. Both myself and Peggy are getting restraining/harassment orders. The community response has been an abundant blessing.

I've gotten a variety of responses for my role in all of this, but all of them label my actions as bravery. "Why do you have to be so brave all the time, damnit." Hero role. "Your strength and courage was beautiful to behold." "Thank you thank you thank you thank you."

It didn't feel like courage to me, but what the fuck does bravery feel like, anyways? My stance came from a space where I refused to be yelled at, I refused to let Peggy be yelled at. I refused to be abused. I've been abused too many times before and I never fought. I knew, as Parker Palmer says, that no punishment Ryan could have given me for opposing him would have been worse than sitting there and taking the abuse, conspiring in my own diminishment. What I do to myself in my silence is much worse than anything Ryan could have done, even if he had stabbed me.

I don't think I can call what I did brave or courageous. No. After all, in retrospect it was quite dangerous and a bit reckless. But if there is any courage in there, it came from the inner choice I made to find a voice I had believed was lost, and stand with a body I believed to be too broken.

that's kind of cool. 

and I continue healing.

Violence does not make sense.

The other day someone told me something that has stuck with me.

You are very intelligent, and that is going to be your biggest hindrance. Stop reading. Violence does not make sense. It does not make sense that human beings can hurt each other.


Truth.

Ironically, I want to make sense of that. I think it's because we are all filled with God. Filled to the brim with God. All of us. So how can God violate God? How can Essence kill Essence? How can Self rape Self? I think that's why that Rwandan documentary said "If you knew me, and you knew yourself, you would not have killed me." So how can we both be filled to the brim with God and be so disconnected from God that we violate each other? Okay, yea, that's where it doesn't make any sense.

Sometimes there is nothing you can do about it. 

no hay que temer.

from an email my mom sent me (my translation).

Temía estar sola hasta que aprendí a quererme a mi misma.
I was afraid to be alone, until I learned to love myself. 
Temía fracasar hasta que me di cuenta que, únicamente fracaso si no lo intento.
I was afraid of failing, until I realized I only fail if I don't try.
Temía lo que la gente opinara de mí, hasta que me di cuenta que, de todos modos opinarían de mi.
I was afraid of people's opinions of me, until I realized, no matter what, they will have opinions of me. 
Temía me rechazaran, hasta que entendí que debía tener fe en mi misma.
I was afraid of rejection, until I understood that I must have faith in myself. 
Temía al dolor, hasta que aprendí que este es necesario para crecer.
I was afraid of pain, until I learned that it is necessary for growth. 
Temía a la verdad, hasta que descubrí la fealdad de las mentiras.
I was afraid of truth, until I discovered the ugliness of lies.
Temía a la muerte, hasta que aprendí que no es el final sino más bien el comienzo.
I was afraid of death, until I learned it is not the end, but rather a beginning.  
Temía al odio, hasta que me di cuenta que no es otra cosa más que ignorancia.
I was afraid of hatred, until I realized it is nothing more than ignorance. 
Temía al ridículo, hasta que aprendí a reírme de mi misma.
I was afraid of ridicule, until I learned to laugh at myself. 
Temía hacerme viejo, hasta que comprendí que ganaba sabiduría día a día.
I was afraid of getting old, until I understood that I gain wisdom day by day. 
Temía al pasado, hasta que comprendí que no podía herirme más.
I was afraid of the past, until I understood that it cannot hurt me anymore. 
Temía a la oscuridad, hasta que vi la belleza de la luz de una estrella
I was afraid of darkness, until I saw the beauty of the light of a star. 
Temía al cambio, hasta que vi que aún la mariposa más hermosa, necesitaba pasar por una metamorfosis antes de volar.
I was afraid of change, until I saw that even the most beautiful butterfly has to transform before it can fly. 

Hagamos que nuestras vidas en cada día tengan más vida y si nos sentimos desfallecer no olvidemos que al final, seimpre hay algo mas.
Let our lives in each day have life, and if we feel ourselves becoming weak, let us not forget that in the end, there is always more. 

genuine joy.

... has a way of pouring out, whether you intend it to or not.

Much has been shifting for me lately. I'm learning to observe myself. It has created a space for joy to fill. Real joy. Genuine joy.

I was driving back to the CapCorps house after yoga this week and experiencing that joy in me. I parked around the corner from the house, where I always do, and as I was getting out of the car, I accidentally hit the horn with my elbow. Mind you, I am not a clumsy person AT ALL, nor do I ever really use the horn when I'm driving. Well, it just so happened that two guys were walking down the street and turned around when they heard me (accidentally) honk. For a split second they looked intensely at me.

Hey! My bad! I didn't mean to do that, I said.

Hey! How you doing? They relaxed, and laughed.



I'm great. Have a nice day. 
You just can't keep genuine joy to yourself. It will find it's way out. 

In Lak'ech

Tu eres mi otro yo.
You are my other me.

Si te hago daño a ti,
If I do harm to you,

Me hago daño a mi mismo.
I do harm to myself.

Si te amo y respeto,
If I love and respect you,

Me amo y respeto yo.
I love and respect myself.

chronic pain

I help once a week at a place called the Community-based Chronic Disease Management Clinic (CCDM Clinic). The name explains itself-- we help people manage chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. I basically help with the flow of the clinic, taking initial info, weights, blood sugar checks, signing women up to get mammograms, and setting up appointments, that kind of thing.

I come into contact with pretty much everyone who comes into the clinic. Often there is enough time to talk a little with people and hear some stories about what is going on in the neighborhood. The stories are also often heartbreaking. Police brutality a couple blocks away, deaths, racist treatment from doctors. Sometimes the stories are lighthearted-- A week ago one woman insisted that I looked just like her granddaughter, Kobe, when I smiled at her. She whipped out a picture and it was as if I was looking at my 2nd grade self. She called out, "Bye, Kobe" when she left, and I told her to take good care. Oddly enough, this happened again to me this week by a coworker who was "freaked out" by how much I look like her granddaughter. It is interesting to me that both the grandmothers were black and both the granddaughters were biracial, but none of us would be considered the same race. Just goes to show how un-scientific (but not insignificant) race is. But I digress.

Working at the clinic makes me think quite a lot about chronic pain, what is really at the root of that pain, and what is really causing it. I mean, come on, OF COURSE the people who come into the clinic have heart problems and tension, just listen to the stories they tell. Their hearts are hurting. But instead of undoing racism and poverty in our communities, we tell people to take medication and eat better. That way, they are told it is their fault for the condition they find themselves in, someone profits off of their suffering through pharmaceuticals, and we don't have to lift a finger working to change our world.

I encourage you to check out some talks I've been listening to by Dr. Gabor Mate, who understands that we cannot separate the mind from the body and we cannot separate individuals from their environment. He specifically talks about high blood pressure and cholesterol and diabetes as a result of chronic stress manifested in the body. It is well worth the time listening to him if we are going to learn how to heal.

http://www.radioproject.org/2012/02/gabor-mate-illness-addiction/

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/24/dr_gabor_mat_on_the_stress

http://drgabormate.com

To be most honest, the reason all of this interests me so much is because I'm searching for how to heal my own chronic pain. I've had persistent stomach problems since coming back from Peru, and I know it's not really about diet or bacteria. Something deep in my human organism is crying out and my gut enflames. I understand that if I am to be a force of healing, I must heal myself.

I don't know how to heal myself, but I'm learning. I know I have everything I need to heal. I know healing comes from within, that I actually have to want to heal. Or at least be willing to be willing. To release the need for this in my life. I know I belong here, now. I know we belong to each other. I know I need to relax. I know it is okay to feel. I know that the longer I try to hide from pain, the longer it festers in me. I'm noticing my defense mechanisms. I know my body has knowledge beyond me. Something lately has been really shifting for me. I can't and won't explain it, at least not yet. But I am observing the sensations of my body, whatever comes, whenever it comes.

I pray. I meditate. I move. I notice.


I'm going to create more space at the CCDM clinic to connect to people. To hear stories, to listen. I think its that connection that helps us heal, not just manage.

We belong to each other. 

privilege as wound

I've been thinking a lot about what privilege does to us. Mostly I've been thinking about his because I've been trying to understand the White Wound so that I can come from a place of compassion towards white people. I've noticed a couple of different mindsets some people have around privilege. I bet there are a lot more than the two I have noticed, but here they are:

1. Some people, knowing that others do not get the same privileges that they do, feel incredibly guilty. Sometimes people try to hide their privilege because of their guilt, sometimes they try to convince themselves that they really earned their privilege, etc.

2. Other people feel very blessed for the privilege, either wanting to use it to help others get to their level of comfort or just feeling very lucky.

I think there are some real problems with both of these mindsets. I could write an essay on the problems, and maybe one day I will, but for now I'm just going to talk about how I've been thinking about privilege. Hopefully you can help me see where my own perspective is limited and complicit.

Okay, privilege is a wound. I'm not quite sure yet if all privilege is a wound, but I'm starting to think that most privilege is. It is the kind of wound that we are taught not to notice, but nevertheless we still feel it somewhere inside of us. I think the depth of the wound comes because privilege teaches us that we do not need each other.

Let me give an example. For the first time in my life, I have access to a car almost whenever I want. I'm taught to think that kind of mobility is a freedom, a good thing to have, again something that makes me more free and independent. I don't have to depend on bus schedules like I have before, or the kindness of others to pick me up, or my own legs to get me where I need to go. I can be independent of all of that. But independence is a great American lie. I actually depend on a lot of other people to drive that car. Dependence on fossil fuels, on the workers who extract them from the earth, on the people whose environment and homes are destroyed, etc. But because I don't have to see them, I can pretend I am independent of them. I learn that I don't need others.

But we do need each other. We come from the same source of Love called God. We need each other because we belong to each other. All of us.

As long as I don't have to think of my privilege as a wound, I will want to keep my privilege, even if I try to keep it in order to make other people's realities "better." As long as I don't think of my privilege as a wound, I can stay sick without even knowing it. I can convince myself I'm right.


How is that working for you, Jess?
Yea, I didn't think so.

Healing

This is a year of Healing.

Healing from my own trauma. Healing from the traumas I have shared with you. Healing from the stories I hear and the ones I tell.

One story liberates another.

Internalized racism, sexism, ableism. Trauma of the oppressor of classism, heterosexism. The complexity of ageism. All the limitations of who I can be and who I can't be.

This is the year of Healing.
Medical trauma. Sexual molestation. Abandonment. Worms of fear and abuse eating away at my insides.

Why do I look for freedom outside of me? As if it is a gift someone else can give me? As if it is something that others can take away from me?
This is the year of Healing.
There is a rhythm of dying and rising that happens in our daily lives. It is so common we tend not to notice it. That is why the Paschal mystery is so powerful, not because what Jesus did was so extraordinary (although it was), but because it was incredibly ordinary.

So ordinary that in every moment, I die and rise faster than I know. Every moment changing. Once I know who I am, I no longer am what I thought I was.

Everything you touch, you change. Everything you change, changes you.

"More grows in the garden than the garderner knows he has sown." Spanish proverb.

At some point, we must let go of the darkness, let go of the struggle, let go of the journey and arrive to the place that has always been inside of us.
Yes, its about the journey, not the destination.
But we do arrive. We cannot cling to the journey so much that we forget the destination.
Let go.
I cannot change anyone but myself. I am the one to work on. I am the only one who knows how to heal myself.
Listen. LIsten to the God in you.
Breathing is enough to be loved.
Let go.
This is a life of Healing.

a day by the lake

A year ago, I arrived in the United States after medical trauma in Peru. JVC, for their own reasons, decided to terminate my term of service at that.

I have not yet told the whole truth of that story to you, but I will soon. Not now, but soon.

Today, a year later, I spent most of the day on the lake shore in Milwaukee. It was a sunny day, the shores were full of people trying to get some sun, excited about the heat and eager for the summer to come. I joined them, eager too for the heat, though it was still too cold for my liking. And it was the first time I think I've seen a beach full of people but with absolutely no one in the water. Weird.

I sat on the sand, moving it between my toes. Friends joined me. Peggy, Tia, Crystassany. Erin couldn't find us but made her own offering. I sang some songs. drew pictures, wrote a little. I offered my last writings in Peru a year ago to the lake. Peggy offered her own poem of the lake's wisdom. Reflecting on the new life that has come, what I wouldn't have learned otherwise, the blessings next to the wounds. A new gift of rose petals from my birthday, the old pills that overpowered me. An offering to the lake, to the God of the lake, the God of creation, from which all things come.

I feel the sun on my back.
I've walked these shores before.
In times of ice
and burning winds.

Then I was here alone.
Now the shores are full, desperate for sun touched skin.
But we still walk with our shoes on.

I don't recognize this place,
though
I have been here before.
Maybe that is the lesson.
To trust myself.


Te quiero, 
Peru. 
The waves wash the first part away. I wait for the lake to touch the second line. It doesn't. The country's name remains. The sun falls and I choose to walk away.

Something shifted.

We do not protect ourselves or others with lies or half-truths or silence. Only the truth frees us.

I did need a mother. But I needed my own mother.

I'm paying attention to who shows up. And who doesn't.

Something shifted.

Today the sun came out and I felt warmth. I had forgotten the feeling of warmth. I didn't realize I could forget that. But the sun came out and bore down to darken me back into who I am. And who I am not.

Why am I afraid to speak truth? I think I risk losing the lies we cling to. And I risk freedom.

She says if you need courage, do Virabhadrasana II. Warrior.

My mother came to visit me in Milwaukee for a week for my birthday. It was the best birthday present I could ask for. There were many gifts that she gave me. The gift of presence, of time, of conversation, relaxation, of a ton of really good food, chorizo, pavo, nacatamales, gallo pinto. Laughter, tears, the right values of spending time with people instead of going out to see stuff. That's invaluable. I am my mother's daughter.

I got out of the yogashala today and I didn't put my shoes back on. I walked barefoot for almost 3 years back in the day, but I started wearing shoes again when the heightened risk of hookworm scared me into disconnecting again from the ground that sustains me. The cold was unbearable to my skin, so the disconnection was sustained. Today I took off my shoes again. I had to pay attention to the ground. And walk without fear.

I sign my emails "Courage" because that's always what I think I need. I used to pray always for strength because that's what I thought I needed too. But I think I'm wrong. I don't need strength or courage. I think I'm good on those. There is something else that I don't even know I need. But once I know that I need it, I will no longer need it.

Freedom? Peace? Love for all people, all of creation? Healing?

I will still practice Virabhadrasana.

another word on Forgiveness

Again, ammended from the Moment for Meditation line:

Remember with deep gratitude that God's grace is free. God's forgiveness is free, so it is not right for us to charge others for it. Its not right to require anyone to do something or even say something before we forgive them.

If we can be purposeful in the way that we make sure that those who wrong us know they are forgiven, that it's okay, that we are not holding a grudge. If we could do that, we would be free of resentments, free of the burden of grudges, free of the need to be right, and free to be content and happy.

Forgive as God forgives with no requrements.