Falling in love with the Sky

Today I couldn't stop smiling on my walk to work. My first walk to work in one month. Instead of being out sick or working from home or taking a bus or cab the few times I made it.

I couldn't stop smiling, and I thought, this is what it felt like when I was falling in love with her. I smiled a lot, hard.

But this smiling today is for self-love. Today I walked, and I don't just want to celebrate the thing I was able to do, I don't want to feed my own sense of ableism (Questions? ask me about this, for real). I smiled so hard because I got to fall in love with the sky and the ground and wind again today, and the fluid winds in my body.

I was filled with bliss. I was luscious in myself.

I thought of you all, who prayed and healed and meditated and loved me with your beings. I deeply thank and love you all, even if I don't know you. My heart feels your heart.

I don't have any wisdoms to offer today but the flowers of gratitude spilling out of me. I feel like I walked under a shedding cherry blossom tree, my head covered against the light sprinkles. Big dark red shades and a shaved head all factor in for quite a strange reflection that I caught sight of a few times. I've been dreaming a lot about having really long glorious hair (again). I suppose it is a longing, but it is the best reason for me to practice being here now. I chose this, and every time I miss something else, I remember that I still want this now, I still want to feel this free and am drawn to what it offers to teach me. It teaches me what I thought it would. The truth lies in your eyes. Long hair just gave me some armor to work with.

Tiara is the one who reflected to me that she knew I was truly high femme in essence, but she also saw the way I wore it like armor.

It feels brave and tender and freeing to take it all off. And I feel really loved and supported, which makes it possible. So people, if there was only ONE thing you could rely on for the rest of your life, rely on faith and its many manifestations. Human beings are some of the best ones.

Liberation is not a day that will come

It's like the beginning or end of a relationship. It takes time and is a process. you end up living in what you were building all along.

You have to liberate yourself in your *current* circumstances daily. And you can.

That work can happen in various ways, but at the very least, what is available to all us is the possibility of changing ourselves - seeing things differently, doing differently to get different results, selecting a worldview that does not damage or deamean us, or harm others, choosing to interrupt thought processes and emotional repetitions and actions that don't serve us in this moment.

We can choose over and over.
We can choose strength and health and positive thinking.
We can forget, resist ourselves, stay in the hardness, and make different choices, and choose hope again.

There's no reason for it that I can explain well. You just do it because that's how you believe life can be, or is. And to give yourself such a precious gift is almost unimaginable. Might we delude ourselves into thinking something good about someone who had done bad to us? We might. And we may be called fools, but we don't think it's foolish - it's just another way to live. To believe the best.

Try believing the best with everything, for a week. Just try it. What do you have to lose but a bad attitude? :)

Assume good intentions.
Forgive.
Let go.
Forget.
Assume they were trying or they tried.
Assume they would have done it better if they knew how
Assume they aren't rude to bump your arm on the subway. they had a real emergency.
Assume that you are lovable and beloved.
Assume well.
Assume you are capable of healing.
Believe healing is inevitable.
Believe in your power, love, and grace.
Believe in your ability to flex that heart like you've never seen done.
Believe in your self.
Believe in your radiance.

Believe your radiant heart - freedom is within.

A Poem Mantra for Y/our Healing

i am free
i am happy
i move with ease
i go with the flow

i am free
i am joyous
i flow
i am loved
i am love

i am free
i flow
i am love

i am love
i am truth
i flow

i wake
i move
i smile

i love
i write
i share

i live
i heal
i grow

i flow
i flow
i flow

i am free
i fly
i'm alive

i flow
i flow
i flow

i am fire
i am sun
i am star

i glow
i glow
i glow

i am light
i am love
i shine

i am truth
i am power
i am magic

i am goddess
i am courage
i am ease

i am loose
i am limber
i relax

i smile
i know
i let go

i grow
i heal
i flow

i live
i light
i glow

i glow
i glow
i glow

my heart radiates love and light and truth
all the time

Random Tips for Holistic Wellbeing

A very non-comprehensive assortment of things I've learned to be true are -

• Overwhelm is perceived to be a result of too much to do, but it is actually a result of too much thinking and planning. Be here now, do one thing at a time. Be present while doing.
• Screen time during night-time makes for bad sleep / imsomnia. So, don't do what I'm doing now - writing on my laptop in bed.
• Connections to other people are life-sustaining. Do more of this good stuff, connecting with who and what nourishes you.
• Water cleanses everything from sickness to physical pain to emotional sttuckness too. - coz you gotta keep getting up to pee and that literally interrupts thought process and mental patterns.
• Yawning is a reach for more oxygen, for sleep, when your breathing and body slows down to meditative levels. When you find yourself yawning, try to give in to it and then rest if possible. At work? I keep a yoga mat around and we have a cozy couch - take a 15 minute lie down.
• Yoga - the union of mind, body, and spirit - is really powerful. When the breathing and movement align, you can find yourself with new stillness and clarity. IT doesn't need to be asanas/postures, it can be whatever intuitively feels good when you close your eyes and start breathing intentionally into your rib cage and pelvis. Don't look at mirrors - unnecessary distraction. It doesn't need to be perfect, feel your way through it and you will move through more than the physical realm.
• Naps are good. I don't usually, but when I can't resist and have the space to, I give in and I find it to be a sweet form of surrender. Sometimes, I also find that a dream needs to comes through with a message. Follow your body's cues, even if the naptime doesn't "make sense".
• Have flowers and plants around. Not only is the oxygen refreshing, but seeing daily life change and grow, and watering them and watching them bloom or dry or die is all pretty magical. As your spiritual awareness grows, so does your awareness of and connection to nature (I read this in Laws of the Spirit World).
• For those of you like me who are loving across distance, have transnational families and communities, print and keep photos of joyous togetherness with loved ones close to you. It helps me with a daily sense of connection. Otherwise the distance and time differences can make it feel like different planets, but also leads to emotional disconnect for me. Some people are not like that, but for me, I think it becomes a coping mechanism to not continuously live with a sense of missing people.
• Say goodbye properly, find a balance - It's always a tricky or nuanced or choppy decision about how and when to ends things or wrap things up - like a blog post, or saying goodbye to a friend, or a phone conversation. Well, for some people it's not, but for me it is and I think that's a cultural and fobulous and desi thing. So, try to recognize your own style, and then see what the other person is putting out so you can find a balance that feels good for both. I like long hellos, I don't like long goodbyes, but I do like tight, sincere hugs on all ends.

There it is, some random things that want to be shared today..... I would love to hear from other people too - what are things you've figured out or read or heard that stuck with you, and perhaps you remembered them while reading this? Please share!

The Longevity/Shelf-Life of Compassion for Oneself

In the past several days I've been really open about going through a round of acute illness and pain.

I've been home or alone or in bed a lot, and it has been hard to watch sunny days go by from this side of the window. Being sick is isolating if you're actually able to prioritize healing. But blogging (and yoga) daily has been an anchor in my non-routine, and has also been a lifeline of connection to the outside world.

One heart-warming thing that has happened is that so many people have sent me love, healing wishes, prayers, phonecalls, texts, emails, invitations to stay with them and be taken care of. What a gift. Another powerful response has been people resonating with going through similar things and, appreciating the public mention of it. This is the aspect I am most drawn to exploring right now.

We all go through it. One way or another, to have a body means to go through some type of ache - colds, flus, allergies, the usual wear and tear of aging, on occasion the sharply painful fractured bone, or something else. And I'm not talking about life-altering illnesses like cancer or Alzheimer's. It seems okay to talk about those things when they happen, because they are usually short, not indefinite, and some come with good or interesting stories. We receive a lot of love and support and hopefully visits and people bring us soup or khichdi or hugs or books - anything we need and want for healing.

What happens when the illness doesn't end? A cold that develops into the flu, that develops into a secondary bacterial or viral infection (still undiagnosed, treatments not working), you're getting more tired daily and exhausted by the medical system, and 6 months later have a diagnosis of an auto-immune disease. Which means, the actual root of the issue is something completely different, the non-stop infections were only a symptom.

Do the flowers run out? Do the friends and family stop showing up? Do people stop asking how you are? No and no and no. My hardest battle has been internal, and it has taken me a loooong time to realize that. I feel like it's boring and repetitive to talk about the same things, and it's a downer for others. A lot of folks who identify as living with disabilities and/or chronic illness/pain might feel similarly. My own empathy for myself runs out. My belief in my capacity to heal, to feel well again, fades. And so, I depress myself in running over the facts again.

From witnessing this in myself, what I can offer today is this. To live each moment like it is the first or last, it takes a sense of wonder. So offer that wonder to yourself.  Today I woke up with acute pain again, and after a momentary gut reaction of despair, I said to myself instead - I've been through this before, I know I'll get through it. (You know what I could always be wrong but I want to live like I believe). I heard my inner voice say - Deep inside, I am okay now. My spirit is not hurt. It has endless compassion, even for me. Especially for me.

And it's a risk to keep writing about daily illness and pain for many reasons, and because of all the beauty and wonder I want to be writing about instead. But if I'm going to write through pain, for me to live more meaningfully, it has to be in a way that allows me to stay in my body. I am trying to practice offering the endless ear to myself, because in doing that, I meet myself anew daily. Nothing is static, no-one is standing still without change. Even when we are still, the earth rotates and so we move. I offer my journey not simply to share it and invite you in, but to offer another path in community. No parent would lose patience with their child for being sick too many times. We can't afford to reserve our compassion for those we love by excluding ourselves. We love people, we are parts of families of origin and choice, and parts of communities and the earth. If a tree dies, we all have less oxygen, less beauty, less shade, less wonder. I want to invite those in pain to keep saying "Ouch!" out loud (if you are able to), and I want to invite those able to hear (even if you are in pain too), to keep responding with "I hear you, I feel you. Can I offer a hug, or anything else?"

Thank you for doing that for me. I am so well taken care, and in such an abundance of healing wishes and blessings and human angels, that I can't help but wish that everyone had that. It is totally possible. Keep offering, keep receiving, immerse in gratitude. <3 p="">

You Are the Sun in Your Own Life

I just watched this wondrous 3 minute video - 3 years of imaging the sun.

The sun does not exist for the earth The earth revolves around the sun.

But we are caught up in the earth's daily 24 hour rotation. We don't always remember the 365 day revolution, but  we are noticing, nonetheless, those of us especially who have been complaining about the too-long winter in New York. The sun is the center of life force and energy. Without the sun, all/most life would cease to be.

We spend so much of our lives looking for the thing that makes our life meaningful or exciting, caught up in the daily and weekly and even yearly and five-yearly and lifelong plans of what we want to build. Of who we want to become. We want great openings, opportunities to come our way that will allow us to fulfill these visions. We wait, to enter our own magnificence.

But we don't need to.

You can be the Sun in your own life. You are. You are life, because you are living and breathing and you care. You are the center of your own life, you don't need to revolve around others. You can know that you are part of a galaxy and your gravity and motion affects other stars, but you are your own Sun. You have a power and radiance that is indescribable, that would make others gape in awe if you could only brave your own brightness.

Don't hold back.

I write every day to nurture my own light. It feels like a candle to me sometimes, and at other times I don't even feel a flame and it's more like a flashlight, running on batteries. But still, I do the thing that makes me burn. If I don't write, I burn within, quietly in anguish. When I do write, I share my light and the heat makes me expand.

On the daily since I started this 30 day blogging commitment, I have received at least one note of affirmation from someone every single day. The message is - keep doing this. I am being shown that there is a radiance that is spreading that connects to others' light. Your light is reaching for mine, and mine is reaching for you. Is this hard to believe? It can be. But have you ever looked in the mirror by chance on the most ordinary of days, and suddenly been gripped by the person looking back at you? It is not the person you will become. It is the person you are, waiting to be free, waiting to be seen in your actual gloriousness.

Believe in your radiance. We see it. You know it, because you feel your own fire. Believe.

After the Endless Night, I am Here Now

I made it! :)

I'm here, one (more) ER visit later and multiple injections and bloodwork and painkillers later. I did what I had to do, and I was supported by a stellar community crew to do it. So then what did Jeannie and do? We walked home from Beth Israel Hospital, grabbed a couple of slices of pizza from our spot on the corner. Hey, it was 3 in the morning and we got hungry again. I ate it, no guilt over the gluten or dairy that I am not supposed to have. And, surprisingly enough, no reaction except an overwhelm of yumminess and justifiedness.

I woke up without the alarm going off, and had an actual work day where I felt present and engaged with this other kind of difference we're trying to make in the world.

I was full of wonder all day. I just didn't know what was going to happen next, or now. I felt less pain, and the absence created a huge space inside me I didn't know what to do with. It felt full of possibility and full of Now. What I felt with each breath,is that I am Here Now. In this moment I am close enough to the pain to not take anything for granted, and far enough to feel relief and hope and so much gratitude. I felt immense gratitude for the human goddesses and gods in my life.

I have no faith in tomorrow. I don't what the next hour will feel like, and my energy and pain levels shift dynamically throughout the day. But that's life, that's living. Pain just makes us notice living more intensely.

I just feel grateful, I Am Here Now. Here is like nowhere I've ever been. It is full of nothing and everything. It is full of the mundane and the meaningful and the magnificent. Here is noticing the food I am eating and liking, or not liking, and it is leaving the training when I need to pee even though I felt like a delinquent trainee, and Here is lying down before the work day was over. (I think everyone should do nothing enough and lay still enough to get bored at least once a day. The company of Boredom is fascinating) Here is going through intense emotional hurt and anger and triggers, but only one moment at a time. I can only be here now. I can't be there. If I don't get through here, I won't get to anywhere. I will simply keep passing Heres, and not know or notice where I am. Then I will be lost.

Tomorrow is another day. It is full of mystery, even though I know my schedule and exactly which other humans I'm supposed to see when. It is still a mystery because a) all of that may or may not happen b) who knows how I or You who I'm supposed to meet will show up to anywhere.

Today I woke up to myself. Life's too short, she says. It is too short and too long but it is actually all the same. It is just as long as Now. So that's my guide, to be here now and to respond to my needs and desires and living right now. You may read all this and think - "individualism - think only of yourself, do what you want, your rights and wants are more important than the larger whole's needs". No, that is not what I mean. To be Here Now means we show up to ourselves, in our selves, so we can show up to meet the world and all that is alive in it. If we are not here, we cannot be anywhere in an authentic, responsive way. Connection is felt when we feel our own currents flowing in and out, mixing with the energy of the universe.

Despair, Pain, and the Need to Choose Life

Today I was in unspeakable pain for a few hours. How the time passed is a flash of images but the emotions of it are a blur to me. I do remember sitting at one point rocking back and forth and praying silently and thinking "I want out of this body". I did the only things I knew to do - pray, eat, take painkillers, and shower and clean hoping the rest of the allergens would be cleansed away, and I would be able to breathe less painfully. I tried to make deals with God - "if this pain is because of that thing i consumed, i promise i'll leave it forever if the pain goes away in an hour. i'll know this is you sending me a message". I tried all this because I was trying, desperately, to have less pain. I couldn't accept that the pain was out of my control and could last indefinitely.

Finally, it lessened a little. When I sat down in my pooja, I started crying so hard from relief that I was okay. I had gotten through the worst of it for now. It was still painful, but livable. But I couldn't stop crying, and then I felt all the terror I had been holding in while going through it - that it would never stop and I wouldn't die either, that I wanted to escape my body and had no control over that either. The crying and despair spiralled out of control. How will I live with this? I can't go through this one more time. Take me, God. Take care of me. How will I manage my life? How will I live? What do I do now?

I heard my phone blowing up. Lots of texts. I thought - God is reaching out to me. This is a lifeline. I finally responded to a work-related question and reached out to my dear coworker. We spoke, which means she stayed on the phone and held and soothed me as I cried. She encouraged me to call other people I loved and to not be alone. I did all that, embedding myself in a desire to live. I wasn't convinced that living is attractive, but I didn't want to give up either. My sole anchor was other human beings. I have difficulty with trust and relying on people, no matter how intimately close to my heart they are. But I knew that to not reach out for help wasn't fair to me, or to people who love me and would want to be in this with me - whether they could physically be there or not. And for me to not let them try, to not let their love and positivity and strength and solace and well-wishes enter me, was just not giving me or them a chance. To fear being let down, sometimes we do that - not give people a chance to get it wrong. But I am willing for people to try. The heart is in being reached for.

What I know is that the pain won't go away. It may lessen. I may feel okay one day. I may get sick again and again, as is likely with chronic illness, pain and auto-immune diseases. I may feel despair again. But I'm committed to living because of how loved I feel, and because I don't want to give up on my spirit. I am still deeply struggling with how long I can continue like this. This feels like a crisis, a crisis of body and spirit and faith and a life turning point. Nothing is figured out, I feel mindless from pain often. What does not help is a thought spiral about what I'm going to do, or how I'm going to live (short-term or long-term). All I can do is breathe. And actually, even that is not in my control. Life is as precious as this one breath, you just don't know if the next one is coming or not. For those who don't teeter on that cliff often or ever, it may feel hard to feel this. But it's true.

Life is no longer about doing things. It is as simple and vital as taking deep breaths. It is as pure as loving, and to feel that we are loved. To feel it, there must be arms that wrap around us, and hands that hold ours, and stroke our weary heads. There must be voices that carry love vibrations across phones and oceans. And people who are willing to bring us food and hugs and medicine if desired, or watch the kids and pets and plants when we can't. Each of us struggles with something or the other, someday or everyday. In us, there must be the desire to choose hope over despair. It is not about getting rid of the struggle, but knowing it is more bearable if we are not alone - for just one more breath, one more day. We don't really have to get through the rest of our lives in this one moment. We just have to breathe one breath now. Thank God that's an auto-pilot system. If you can hold on to nothing else, notice that.  

My Presence Belongs in My Self

Tonight my insight is that being present to take care of yourself is more important than keeping a commitment for the sake of it.

I want to be someone who keeps my commitments.  Sometimes, who we want to be can get in the way of showing up for what we need right now. Who we think we are can get in the way of who we are becoming. Our ideas of "who" can get in the way of being now.

I blog daily to stay connected to the world, to share myself fully, and to invite others into an open space of learning and reflection. Remembering why I do things has become a solid anchor to doing them, or letting go of them.

A Collection of Powerful Quotes

Today we have quotes by other people. Hey, I promised to blog daily, and may have found the one possible loophole to publicly sharing my writing - sharing other people's! What can I say, having a rough moment and needed to read and remember more than I was able to write today. Here we go....


You become what you believe in.  - Humaira Awais Shahid

Things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. – Pema Chödron

If you feel lost, ask a question for guidance - POC meditations book

I prefer dangerous freedom to peaceful servitude. - Enric Duran. 

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.  - Friedrich Neitzsche

There is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken. There is a shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable...there is a hollow space too vast for words through which we pass with each loss, out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being. - Rashani

May the bridges I burn light the way - Dylan McKay

When you reframe something, you must first deconstruct what was once there. That can be excruciating, when that something is you. - Valaida Fullwood 

You are here so that someday you can look yourself in the eyes and bow to your own grace and strength. - Syd Yang's blog quoted this, source unknown

Onwards then, bowing to our own grace and strength, and the fires that keep us alive. Please feel free to share your quotes too, the ones you wrote, the ones you read, the ones that keep you whole when all is turbulent in life and in the mind and body.