Intentions for a New Life

It is in surrender that the lotus blooms.

2012 is the Year of Surrender, the Year of Bliss, the Year of Life, the Year of 30!

i am free.


i am completely healed and whole.


i am letting go....
... of the past, of unhealthy habits people behaviors thoughts attachments, of pain, of worry about the future, of anxiety, of stress, of trauma, of repression, of anything that does not grow me in positive ways.

i am moving...
... moving on, moving forward, moving my body, moving my mind, moving at the pace of my beautiful heart.

i am open...
... to a New Life, to meeting lots of new people, to interesting and joyous experiences, to new ways of living and thinking and feeling and responding, to receiving the marvelous blessings that Guruji is always showering me with, to new tastes, new sounds, new pleasures, to healing, to being corrected (kindly and lovingly), to going with the flow, to magic, to love, to passion, to seeing in new ways, to growth (even the growing pains)...

i am seeking...
... domestic bliss, joy in my daily work, surrender in my daily life, success in doing meaningful work, structure, discipline, a balance of that with the newness of the unknown, adventures, relaxation, grounding, movement, an active and vibrant life in this city, more connection with loving family, great friends, great lovers, blissful sex, frequent laughter, to discover places & flavors & self, to be blown away so hard that my mind has stopped and my body is seeing hearing speaking in its strongest voice, and is seen heard and responded to. i am seeking wholeness, nothing less than blossoming my core beautiful powerful blessed fierce bold and true self.

i am committed to...
... working out! getting stronger, to frequent yoga at home and in community, to being loving true and courageous always, to dancing often at home and in community, to the health of my heart, to the well-being of my spirit, to wealth redistribution, to being transparent about my life and my values and my process, to undoing my own bullshit, to letting go, to finding others seekers and devotees and those who live by heart and spirit, to fulfilling my potential as an artist, as a writer and a poet and a performer and a dancer and photographer and a painter and a sketcher, to dedicating structured and frequent time to my art, to putting out my art, to being vulnerable, to making an income as an artist, to mentoring, to receiving mentorship, to being fiercely truthful and fiercely kind, to laughter, to exploring my sexuality, to relaxing, to going with the flow, to trusting myself, to choosing surrender instead of anxiety, to hope, to trusting that things will work out, to spending quality time with people i love and people i like, to blooming, to speaking if necessary even when terrified, to checking my consumerism and materialism, to responding to my needs in a prompt and loving way, to laughing a lot, to being myself, to not holding back, to living freely and with joyous abandon, to kissing when i feel like it, to good fashion, to taking the necessary steps to becoming a therapist, to cooking delish & nourishing meals in community and for myself, to finding a good balance between solitude and company, to believing that i deserve good things, to reading lots of books, to poetry, to forgiveness, to creating a beautiful soulful home that is a sanctuary to all who rest there even in passing, to going after the great things i want in my life and the great people, to being generous, to ease...
to truth, beauty and love
to God
to nourishing my own divinity
to life

i am committed to living this wild life wholly and joyously!

i am committed to seeking and choosing the light, and to all that makes flowers bloom.

i am committed to making quality time for myself, to stop making to-do lists which only stress me out, to appreciate myself for who i am and who i'm becoming and not just for what i do. i am committed to doing the best that i humanly can at a happy pace.

My intention this year, and forever, is to live with ecstasy, lightness & integrity.

All magic lies within the experience of living meaning fully.

looking for magic in SoHo

at first i felt angry about all the joys that were taken from me: iced mochas, chai, roti, fried goodness, drinking, smoking, the other smoking, melted cheese, instant coffee. uffff!!!! then i came to accept that this was some kind of purification, to make this body-temple better cleansed to serve the soul it houses. a clearer channel, a cleaner instrument. okay, i can live with that. there is still an outsideness to that. that i am here to serve a purpose outside of me, bigger than me. a sacrifice, perhaps. and i may have become resigned to yet resentful of this spiritual calling. a consolation that God cares about me enough to purify me, but not fully excited to serve this purpose because of the "sacrifices" it compels, without my input on the matter.

walking around in SoHo today, another thought occurred to me. i spent about 2 hours exploring the stores - dept and boutique - on Broadway between Spring and Canal streets. at first i was looking for the New York City magic in those stores, in the flurried crowds all flashing fake gold and big bling. in the funky, kitschy style that is pure New York. but then the old feelings returned. nauseated by the materialism it surfaced in myself, all the clothes and shoes started to look stupid and ugly and meaningless. they started to look like props in a play i had seen before. there was no magic here. just stuff. a lot of stuff that people don't need, but it was made, and then the desire for it was created. and i get sucked in, every time. it takes a little less time each turn though, to zoom back out and see through it, to come back to my self. i left the stores. i didn't need more stuff. i have plenty of beautiful clothes and shoes for this beautiful mad city.

then i felt free. i could just walk around, see anything, do anything, because i had no agenda anymore. i didn't "need" to get boots or anything to get outfitted for the cold. what i had on me was enough for the weather today. and what awaits me - the future colderness of new york, as well as more warm and beautiful clothes and boots and scarves in boxes in seattle - will hopefully all come together in the same time. today i will only pursue what i need today.

it was about that time in the almost-shopping/exploring spree when i would have sat down at a cafe - with my sister or a friend or my cellphone. we would be exhausted, weighed down with bags, and need a place to rest and recharge. to connect with real human beings. to have a sweet treat or the familiar comfort of a decked up coffee drink. but the caffeine is not so good for me, or the sugar and dairy for that matter. i didn't have bags but i was tired, and alone. and there was no cafe that could make me feel significantly better, because of the other ways it would harm me. that was when i became more free. i realized, all the vices that were taken from me, have left me with no escape routes. no easy comfort, no filling in for home in a new city where i am not yet rooted. all i had was me. home was in my heart was in my body.

with that, i finally left Soho. it's not that i won't seek home in cozy cafes or iced drinks anymore. but i will know the difference between seeking comfort and finding home. you can't get everything you want all the time or even most of the time. but when what you seek is in your heart, there is real comfort in knowing that it is accessible, it is here. in stillness and rest, i find myself whole, and enough.

body home / home body

"i stand on the railing poised to fall
balanced on the edge of the dividing wall
i fear not the death that fear all
it is life that terrifies my soul..."

i first read this poem/lyrics excerpt when i was around 13 or 14. i don't know who wrote it. it settled into my consciousness deeply. it was true for a long time. about wanting to escape life, to not live.

these 4 lines are ringing inside my head non-stop today. but why? i have never wanted more to be alive. it has taken me this long, most of 29 and three-quarter years of life to come to this feeling. i have drifted, been unconscious, been slapped into alertness by life, made choices, made mistakes, fucked it all up, and finally started to awake and eventually, to create. in order to begin to heal, i have had to face the extent of my trauma. the process of healing feels deathly painful, and i suppose the spiritual philosophers would say that it is a dying of sorts. it is the death of what is toxic, what holds us back, what we can't let go of. and there is no way out but through it.

my current learnings are to stay in my body no matter what is going on. my demon is dissociation. i was shown how i used it to survive, and now i'm ready to let it go. but feeling all your feelings hurts so bad! no wonder i want to escape. but the power of staying, is to not abandon myself. if i can't be present with and accepting of all my feelings, i find myself seeking to fill that void in other ways. that just leaves more emptiness. i am ready to fill up my own body with my spirit, my being, being here.

i always said i suck at meditation. i was frustrated because i thought i couldn't do it. but then april laughingly said it was a lesson in failing over and over, and it changed everything. i can do that! or at least, i'm willing to do that if that's what it is, if that's what it takes. coming back from dissociation is no different. i leave, i catch myself thinking and gone, i breathe, i come back softly. and before i know it, i've left again, but again, i notice, and i come back.

leaving seattle. going to new york. in 3 days.

now that i've decided to live in my body full-time, i have never been more ready to be in a place that is so electric, with a strong heartbeat. i am ready to walk, taste, smell, touch it all. i am ready to dance. no actually i am craving it. my toes are tingling often. i feel like i'm coming out of the sick bay into the world again.

have you noticed that the sun has been shining for me all week? i have. and i have loved it back with my eyes, my smile, wide open arms and gasping for sunshine flavored air.

i stand on the railings poised to fly. i leave nothing behind. it/they/you are all in my heart, in my body, in who i've become here. thank you.

When i lived in You

When i lived in Beauty
i smiled easily and often

When i lived in Truth
i became bolder and kinder

When i lived in Love
it gave me pleasure to give

And so,
Beauty, Truth and Love
came to live in me.

breathe pain breathe

"In addition to pain during menstruation, the pain of endometriosis can occur at other times of the month and doesn't have to be just on the date on menses. There can be pain with ovulation, pain associated with adhesions, pain caused by inflammation in the pelvic cavity, pain during bowel movements and urination, during general bodily movement i.e. exercise, pain from standing or walking, and pain with intercourse. But the most desperate pain is usually with menstruation and many women dread having their periods. Pain can also start a week before menses, during and even a week after menses, or it can be constant. There is no known cure for endometriosis." - Wikipedia


the word that stands out the most for me today is desperate. this kind of pain makes me desperate. each time it happens, i hear myself in my head saying "it hurts so bad i feel like dying." but then, i don't die. that's almost worse.

and then, other voices start filtering in. i remember Thich Nhat Hanh and Pema Chodron saying something about being present with the pain - to notice it in each moment, and see it, feel it, see how it changes. it is pretty dynamic, i notice. then i remember people telling me to breathe. and i notice that i stopped. there was an inhale i never let go of because i thought i might crumble. i exhale, and soften a little. then i hear people around me expressing love and care, and i feel bad for them, i know witnessing isn't easy, for them or me. my family happens to call me and i get off the phone in a hurry. i don't want to tell them how bad it is and they can hear it from how i can't talk. but later, when i can notice again, i feel cared for.

what is it that brings me back to hope on a night like this, when even the painkillers don't filter through to my body? mmm.... i guess it's remembering the long hike from 2 weeks ago, when i was preparing my body for the spiritual wilderness retreat. that retreat is this weekend and now i'm not going, coz of the pain and coz i couldn't face no running water with my body's current needs. but, as Christine reminded me, i'm exactly where i was divinely placed in this moment.

i'll be retreating in bed this weekend, letting go of the idea that God is on a mountain waiting for me to visit.

love-light and butterflight

often when people die we cry. we get sad. we mourn. we miss them. sometimes we think that death is random, or perhaps unfair, or maybe untimely, or unwanted, or cruel. but we can say all those things about life. life is bizarre. we know bio-logic-ally how people get pregnant, but really, that is some random magic we have accepted as logic. penis, vagina, sperm, swimming, egg, fertilization, conception, birth.

but really, why is it that way? we don't know. it could have been any one of a gazillion ways. and why does the baby come out of the vagina, or as my friend once described - what business does a watermelon have coming out of a lemon? it's puzzling. i'm about to become a maasi. coming-soon baby has the outsides shaped, and the insides are being carved. it is pretty close to fully developed now, having grown from a sunflower seed size to a mango. it could come out now, and it would be a lot easier and less painful for my sister, actually for mango baby too. but no, these paths are not meant to be. life is hard. we are always going to be watermelons trying to squeeze through lemons, not believing it to be possible, because of our large size (ego/ physical mind) and hard shell (physical body).

but actually, we underestimate ourselves. we are much more collapsible, deflatable, twistable, shrinkable, and adaptable than we imagined. we only know our bigness, the space we want to occupy. but we have forgotten our smallness, the space we come from, the space that remains intact inside us, the core seed. when life is hard, we are forced (or we learn) to shed our extra layers, to pass through the eye of the needle and still retain our essence. when we think we have nothing or nobody, we shrink. we go deep within, into the quiet dark magic that we came from, to access our godliness. life can be random, unfair, untimely, unwanted, or cruel. death can be perfect, and beautiful.

we are but butterflies, constantly in metamorphosis. and like every transformation that is radical and beautiful, it is painful.

i welcome the shapes that are emerging. and remember to cocoon yourself in love and light to get you through the pain meanwhile.

for neena goswamy and emil paddison.

Safety / Violence

There are no "random acts of violence". It is safety that is random. I'm just lucky that I didn't get raped, groped, slapped or called a bitch today. It doesn't mean that it can't happen tonight.

At some point, I just had to stop looking over my shoulder, and to re-learn and practice that daily.