Thu, 10 May 2012 18:53:45 +0800WeeblyThu, 12 Apr 2012 02:27:09 +0800http://reflecting.weebly.com/1/post/2012/04/-moving-from-time-into-aliveness-part-two-of-the-eyes-of-my-heart-awoke.htmlI started walking feeling a bit of dread where all of a sudden yellow jumped at me from a side street.
Full of life, swaying gently, a clump of shrubs of tiny yellow flowers all gathered together, were brilliant and celebratory.  Another step, I experienced a bare tree, fully eerie, fully fantastic.  Twists and shapes, I don't have the language to explain, a true contortionist.  Swaying or bowing and swaying and bowing both? and or? of dressed trees this time, some lush and green, some budding white gifts.  So incredibly intricate, it felt like divine gentleness.  At this point the cement also greeted me kindly with it's gracious shades of grey, perfectly perfect cracks, lines, and circles, natural design.  My eyes wandered with my ears as an engine revving announcement appeared, it's beautiful presence not a single flaw.  Everything was/is still, everything is moving.  Still now, the pen moves almost on it's own free will dictates what it wants to write, what it wants to share.  The traffic still whooshing by in a room still and silent, much like a lake at dawn before her world awakes.   A silence to palpable it's frightening perhaps contained in house, perhaps completely alive.  An alive silence.
The colors almost too bright, a perfection that can not be manufactured, a sensitivity to life arises with in this perfection, is! this perfection.  For a life happening every second, something fresh springs forth something alive.
Noticing this aliveness seems to be this play, thawing out a set of frozen ideas.

Moving from Time into Aliveness.   We change time.
Time changes itself through us. 

A fully animated magical world appears and was always here, where inner and outer converge.  One single moving still point.  Aliveness, full emptiness, like a name of a book written; Emptiness Dancing. ]]>Thu, 12 Apr 2012 01:50:47 +0800http://reflecting.weebly.com/1/post/2012/04/the-eyes-of-my-heart-awoke.html

As I walked this path this street dozens of times, I felt I knew what it was and I wasn't interested.  I wanted to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, I was tired perhaps even exhausted from another restless night.
After stopping to get some breakfast and reading a particularly powerful paragraph, or a few about the relationship we have with perception, in Becoming Animal, my world came alive.  The eyes of my heart awoke.  Once again, I got curious to see what I will see this time in this magical shift of perception, how my senses will perceive the moving world.  There as my heart awakes, I find freshness, aliveness, interest in absolutely everything.  Jingle jangle, the sound of jewelry I thought, waiting for a passerby to see the jewelry dangle, I was surprised to see a crisp leaf in the moving air hitting the grey cement, wow.  I was already amazed.
With my mouth slightly opened, I realized how I must look to people, self conscious I pulled back from my vivid experience just a little.  As I started to notice the shape shifting clouds revealing a majestic blue sky.   Another brown leaf entered my senses crisp it seemed and light, dancing with the wind and because of it, hard say it in language because leaf and wind couldn't be separate in experience.  Across the street two girls in skinny jeans walked as if not touching the ground, I felt their lightness like gazelles lightly floating, flowing. curious.
An elderly woman appeared with a child, right beside me.  The child in bright pink, full of brightness and beams of sun from her face.  Her backpack said 'it's all good' I think it was Dora the explorer character.  I smiled.
The woman beamed back thrilled, it seemed to be here with this child, enjoying.
I looked away for a second, they seemed to have magically jumped in space, they were pretty distant now.  First they were near now it seemed my eyes were playing tricks on me perception outside of time is playful, full of tricks, yet really ordinary and very curious I might even say magical...

(continues in part 2)
]]>Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:11:35 +0800http://reflecting.weebly.com/1/post/2012/03/an-active-truth.htmlMy chest feels coiled tightly or like a rope that is squeezing my heart
this sensation feels truly unbearable a suffocation of some kind
i notice now it's gone or moved into my gut that now started speaking
i'm wrought with guilt with shame for some things real and some imaginary
one could argue that it is all imaginary one could argue that it is all real.

i so desperately ..I pause notice how that thought was impacting my body
i didn't like where it was going.  I stopped.
I am a creator.  I see that sometimes.
No I don't like the feel of that either, or it sounds like an airy fairy new agey
concept. I didn't mean it like that.
I meant I create my own world with increased awareness i notice thoughts
sometimes i notice which ones hurt and which ones don't

I want to sleep at a decent time, it hasn't happened for ages.
I tense up thinking it won't again.
I don't want to sleep because i know i'll just wake up to another futile
day, these are my thoughts.  my best friends the company i choose to keep
why in the heck would i have such mean friendS?

I feel a glimpse of openness, of unconstricted reality
where everything is open and nothing happened
i bathe in it for a bit

what feels like fear, dances in my heart once again, not giving much of a break
I feel empowered, like it's up to me, like i have a choice
I'm grateful for that.  So often I have felt trapped with no choice
right now it feels like anything is possible, ageless, fearless, question less,
just in love. i didn't expect that.  the thing about in love.

i like to study my body, i like to notice but mostly when judgment is lacking.
it's less fun when the judge criticizes everything i notice.

I guess i write to satisfy an extreme aloneness,  a lack of being able to connect completely
and truthfully.  so often i try and am let down, and let others down.
the night is my friend, especially when it invites me to write to it.
when it listens.
I'm lucky for this moment, a moment devoid of conflict
a moment that even if conflict exists it doesn't mind it.


this moment is rich, it affords me space.  It affords me something we call love
but that feels way beyond that word.
the coil around my heart is strengthening itself
i notice starting to feel more panicked more freaked out
as it seems to wrap around all the way down to my gut
I want to shoot it, I'm violent I want to get rid of it, to fight it
this invisible and temporary sensation, i make it seem so solid
even though it's no longer even here as I still feel it

the truth is confusing sometimes, maybe all the time.
it's too quick to be spoken ]]>Mon, 12 Mar 2012 13:29:43 +0800http://reflecting.weebly.com/1/post/2012/03/being-undone.htmlI lay here, wanting to go to sleep yet not wanting to.  I feel unresolved.
I felt like my sense of self got shaken up, triggered some anxiety, feelings of unworthiness
and feelings of rejection.
It's curious how when that happens I don't know what to do, I watch myself
running around but not that you can see.
I may have a conversation, but I'm not really there for it, because truthfully I'm just trying to get
away from myself.  Which is fine, I'm not judging it.  It just has a quality of feeling disconnected from the aliveness of the words.
Then I put on some show in hopes that I get distracted enough so I can fall a sleep.
What I was noticing is that I didn't want to leave it, me, feelings, undone.

Undone.

So often in life things are unresolvable, from little things that can not be resolved in a moment.  Maybe a misunderstanding with a stranger.  Or even with a loved one.  To what's the purpose of my life, this life.
And perhaps just the fact that life is an open question, no element of control, through the form of understanding, analyzing, staying up, staying on the merry go round of thinking, distracting, will solve.

Time and time, I come back to, this too is unresolvable.   Unknowable, not unworkable.
But just has to be left open, it's so hard for me to leave it open, all hanging out.
The image that comes to mine is a surgery, an operation, a body on the table gets cut open and just left
without repair without putting it together again.  It's not exactly the right analogy.
But it's how it feels to me to be undone.  And how much I refuse, or resist this feeling of being at the mercy of life at every moment.  This is how it feels to me, I often try to make things right, be the good girl, or be the bad girl, or be the peace maker, or be the loud crazy one, or be whatever is needed so that things feel good, that they lack this messy quality, this undone~ness

Just now I caught myself now wanting to go to sleep undone.
I feel ok with that.  Ok with not wanting to sleep undone, ok with being undone
ok to relax right into it, to sink very deeply with it.  It's really not so bad.

Sometimes the things I resist the most, the ones I cringe about and feel squishy inside and have no space for.  Show me that they are not at all as bad as I thought they would be.
Maybe it's not so bad to fall perpetually without a parachute and never hit the ground?
]]>Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:29:34 +0800http://reflecting.weebly.com/1/post/2012/02/an-ode-to-writing.htmlFeeling spirally and freaked out, kept trying to call my friends, post on facebook
do something with this energy I guess it's away to try to discharge it.  Finally I remembered, writing.

Often writing makes me feel less alone, and especially if I'm holding something or something is holding me, or really it's a me that's wound up. Sometimes like just now, writing does the trick, it's pure magic.

I don't know why or how, but with this intention of growth and reflection, sharing, and exposing my flaws, my humanness, in the process I feel transformed.  I feel alive, and like whatever shit happens it gets the space to unfold, dissolve, or just be there.

So I'm not even sure if I need to speak about the situation at hand, I could I guess.
But I see how no matter how big something is or seems to be, there is nothing that some space, and awareness wouldn't heal, even just a bit.
Often given by a blank computer screen, unconditionally accepting anything I feed it, with complete lack of judgment,  or a spacious non-judgmental  friend.

Just now I realize that these two have so much in common, unconditional space.  Just pure presence.
I love thinking of my computer screen and this media platform as my friend, as my unconditional fully embracing all encompassing friend.


I was freaked out about an incident last night, that involved coming back home from a party.  Riding my bicycle down a dark quiet road, where all of a sudden there was a man crouching with a gun, pointing quietly, looking waiting.  He saw me passing by and my heart jumped and leaped to what felt like out of my body.  I rode so fast I wanted to disappear, and rewind the whole situation. Here I am traveling alone, which I usually don't mind.  And have done so for years, all of a sudden panicked, disoriented and ready to leave this place.

The interesting thing is that as I'm freaking out looking for a way out, a voice said: write it down. So I am
and what I'm so amazed with how alchemy works.  How by putting some of these things we call words that get strung into sentences all of a sudden, change.  Not only that but realizing how valuable writing as a form or expression, outlet and connection is.

Am I ever grateful to be able to write, to be able to share this with who ever feels inclined to read,
I'm always so thrilled when someone said, I read your post.  And whatever feedback I get always amazes me and deeply touches me, partly as an ego trip of someone read MY blog, partly as a confidence building experience since I'm generally extremely insecure, and experience feelings of unworthiness.
And partly a a genuine deep feeling of connection and gratitude, and a feeling of oneness in our shared humanity, as well as the part in us that is beyond human, presence, our being this raw awareness, that is sharp and endless.


All that being said, thank you for being here with me.  Thank you for life as it happens, what a fucking adventure. It truly is a ride!

]]>Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:30:32 +0800http://reflecting.weebly.com/1/post/2012/02/i-dont-need-to-be-fucking-happy-all-the-time.htmlHow do you explain burnout? 
More than burnout complete and utter disgust for this world.
For people's meanness, and stupidity.  And just the messiness of life
I am angry at life, I'm so pissed that it exists in the way that it does.
I'm tried of waking up to the same thing over and over and over and over again.
The wind does help sometimes, the melodic sound of the keyboard and the fan.
But being pissed off I just don't seem to be able to let the good in, or to see the good.
I can't even taste a wonderful dinner.  Sometimes this happens.
And it is also a part of this mystery, I write this to be honest to be genuine with my experience 
to not hold back, to take interest in any state of mind not just what we like to call the good ones.

It scares me to write like this for a number of reasons, one is that I think I try to establish myself as a nice person, or at least as aspiring to be skillful, and not add more difficulty or pain to the world.
So it's true this maybe adding more pain, this maybe unskillful.  Probably is.

But the thing is it's also important for me to know to realize, this state is this state.  It's ok.  
I say there is no good or bad, I say it's not one or the other.  But I'd like to actually say well shit this is how I feel it sucks right now, and it just is.  I don't need to fix it, I don't need to pretend that it's not happening.  I don't need to fight it, and god damn I don't need to be happy all the fucking time.

I don't know there maybe a diamond hidden somewhere, and maybe there is no further diamond just the diamond that is here now in experience, in raw unmeditated experience.  
Maybe I'm melodramatic.  Maybe I'm insane.  Maybe I'm difficult.  Maybe I'm too intense.
But if that's the case, why keep it contained, why oppress and deny all these qualities.


I am not always nice, in fact I am a real bitch sometimes.  I'm not humble or kind, in many ways I just want my own way.  I'm selfish and arrogant at times, and please don't tell me I'm not.  This is NOT a self loathing trip.
Or maybe it is. Who the fuck knows.

But I am so so tired of being fake, some people may say it's more skillful to not say all of this to an audience.
And they are probably right.  I've never been very good at following rules, or any kind of fence around me.
I try, I fail.  I do aspire to make people's lives better, including my own.  Because it does make me happy.  
I guess this post is entirely for me! there I said it.  Weird, kind of a relief actually.

And a fear. With this whole spiritual movement, sometimes the spiritually correct thing pisses me off.
I am sure I'm guilty of it too.  But I want to see you, your essence.  Not to hide behind the polite, sweet, spiritual way.  That isn't spiritual.  It's devastating.  I don't feel a connection to you, I'd much rather someone be difficult and genuine.  Ok I'll stop my rant. 

And just to not take this whole thing too seriously (life, I mean) I'll throw in my favourite platitude of all time 

IT'S ALL GOOD :) ]]>Sun, 19 Feb 2012 07:25:50 +0800http://reflecting.weebly.com/1/post/2012/02/wind.htmlDisoriented, lost, confused, don't know what the heck it going on trying to scurry
around it behind it, skip over it.  However it's the natural state of affairs.
Here I am, it feels like there is something going on, 'story lines' to explain and back it up.


'the guy I love left me', 'I'm all alone', 'I'm so tired of this, of life', 'it's all the same', ' I'm only going around in circles', 'when can I get to that stable place where things run smooth and are stable'

Maybe never!

The thing is this contact with this messiness, disorientation, uncertainty, discomfort, clumsiness, is what I've got.  Perhaps I feel it even more because I'm less distracted right now (and usually), perhaps because my vices are not working so well for me anymore, perhaps I've become to aware to ignore, or to fall back on something.

Man, do I want a safety net right now.


What happens when there is nothing to fall back on? the dread, I could just feel the pit of my stomach, the horror
but still here, still breathing and typing.
What happens when we contact life on it's terms?
What happens when even for a moment we give our attention to this inconceivable~ness, to this stirring in our hearts, in our bones?
Already just by writing about it, and naming it, I could feel just a little relaxation just letting go into it.
what if I didn't spend all my energy either protecting from feeling this discomfort, or waiting for it to be over.
I'll be waiting my whole life, however long that will be.
It won't be over because it IS life, it is how things are.  Unpredictable. Undeniably fresh, raw, in my face.
Especially being in a foreign country on my own, not having a structure or something to focus on.
I find myself facing this stirring in my soul, not sure what else to call it.

The wind seems especially strong today, my relationship with the wind has softened.  It's become more acceptable.  I'm not as angry at the wind anymore.  I listen to her, she reveals intensity, wildness, strength, consistency, power, invisibility, and really she just is.

What message does she deliver with her velocity?  What is her will?


Often it feels like she's stripping me of all I've got, although not purposefully just because I happen to be around, in her way.  Often it feels that she's even stronger than the waves, stronger than all the elements put together at least at this moment.  She feels symbolic somehow.  I love her, and sometimes within that love, I despise her.

She wants to enter my hiding place, and I don't want to let her.  I only want to when I'm comfortable but she doesn't go for that.  She goes for what she wants.   And really I'm not that much different than her, in fact I am her, and she blows, and howls and destroys, and builds including every element.  Not separate than anything else, she is a reaction, a response to all of life.  She is a reflection of me as much as of you, and of the sea, of war, of boats racing, and screaming children.


She offers a deep breath, and another.  I can't refuse her.
I don't what will happen tomorrow, or even later on today.  But just for a few moments I pause
and let all of it in, and let all of it be, with the help of my friend the wind.



]]>Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:42:15 +0800http://reflecting.weebly.com/1/post/2012/01/the-ability-to-turn-inwards-with-a-gentle-eye.html_I can't hide from uncertainty, I can try.
But truthfully I see and I know that this moment to moment recognition
of bare life, of unprotected uncertain life often throws me in search of distractions,
or of cocooning, and trying to make it go away like the boogie man.  Only the boogie man
wasn't really there, and this is.

I also notice the subtle hope that in writing I'll resolve this conflict, I'll wrap it up
in a nice package, I'll understand it better, I'll feel alright.
No.  I remind myself, this is Not going away.
The this that isn't going away is my life, is the Principal of insecurity
it has so many ways in which it morphs.  For me it could sound like defeat, anger, hurt, disappointment, sharpness, over excitement, anything that gets me away from this fragility that has no anchor.
From the turns my stomach does when it glimpses upon this truth.

So why do I write this, I think that when we can contact the truth, the nature of how things are.
There can be an okness with things as they are, without trying to make them into something else, no manipulation required, all the energy that goes into fixing, into pushing away is now available
for whatever.  For me it happens to be to feel this moment, to get in touch with my body, with my gut
with the rawness and the no buffer of life.

There is a beauty here but not the kind that's only happy, and not the kind that doesn't care.
The mixture and entangles truth of beauty, good / bad, pain / pleasure, ugly / beautiful
The fullness I can feel as I write these words as they come out of my belly,
They support me, just as I am.  They help me not run away for a second, maybe two.
They show me, that this is the human condition, not something personal I need to beat myself up for.

Compassion is what truth offers me right now, and I'm thirsty for it.  I'll take it.
The ability to turn inwards with a gentle eye/I


]]>Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:44:12 +0800http://reflecting.weebly.com/1/post/2010/12/you-dont-have-to-be-good.htmlRight now I feel down, a little lost, and unsure of pretty much everything.
I walked outside briefly, it was still beautiful, stunning view of the city
with the stars shining bright, and the city lights reflecting on the water.

Noticing the shine on the leaves from a street lamp here and there.
I was surprised once again to see how beauty and pain, arise together,
and possibly are the same side of the same coin.

I'm feeling tired of trying so hard.
Tired of being pretty, tired of trying to be talented, to be good.
All to get that longed after praise, recognition and attention.

Perhaps just plain and simple, bare bones life, is enough.
It might not be overly stimulating in the way that feels good superficially.
But over time, my taste grows for the nuance of THIS.
That we call here, now, this moment.

I have tendency for worry, for feeling dark. But also for seeing beauty and looking closer.
Once again, they are not separated, they come from each other with each other.

I'm remembering a Mary Oliver poem:
 you don't have to be good...

You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves. 
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. 
Meanwhile the world goes on. 
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain 
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees, 
the mountains and the rivers. 
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 
are heading home again. 
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination, 
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place 
in the family of things."


Thank you for listening to me, and I wish you realness and warmth or whatever floats your boat
over the holidays, and always.
Love.
]]>Fri, 17 Dec 2010 10:08:27 +0800http://reflecting.weebly.com/1/post/2010/12/gods-loving-itself-in-mysterious-ways.htmlA most fascinating, interesting and scary situation to lose a reference point.
In this case to not be with someone I love deeply.

I was lying here in bed trying to sleep.
Maybe even trying to figure out and name emotions, to even know what my position is.

I found out

I don't know who I am, I don't know where I am.

It's a blank? or just a fundamental fear when the rug from under is pulled.

What is it that gets that rug pulled up?

is it a storyline, a mirage, a fantasy..

yes and yes to all.

And still, the extreme discomfort, restless, even though the bubble burst, still a residue of a ghost
Of beliefs piled on top of beliefs, seeing it doesn't makes it any less painful.

There is wanting to get out, get away, change something, do something but what?

This is also GOD, this is also LIFE.

Life is showing up in endless forms, it has a huge range.
The painful ones, the joyous ones.

Is there Joy in the pain? is there joy in experiencing?
Just plain and simple whatever is experienced.

Curious and wanting. I'm not there yet. Or maybe I've been here all along.
Where else could I be?


Just because it appears as something unwanted, which anyway morphs and changes every second
doesn't mean it's not LIFE, GOD all along

expressing itself, unfolding itself, loving itself in myriad forms.



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