Near to my Breath

Feeling alone and invisible in a favorite coffee shop in a favorite city. My elated heart breaks throughout alternate moments--like an exhalation. Could anything be more beautiful? I am saturated with sympathy almost continuously and have no desire to change this.


The dark man named me clear water as he sipped me slowly, endlessly in a small moment that has always and shall ever be.... The deepest hole, one that I could fill fill fill and never gather rising, cleanses me of every resource, every preconceived notion. I learn at each turn that it is my job to illuminate the dark places; to rise continuously as the sun and birds come screaming towards me (I follow the wind).


What higher purpose could I serve than that of embodying a clear reflection? Your energy and perception blankets my form and is thus presented for your gaze. I share in your reaction, I mix it with the facade of all to create the most beautiful ugly painting. I am only alchemist--lead into gold, glass into diamonds, something from nothing I pull and incarnate; filtering and releasing toxins to those who want them. My self, a mysterious essential, becomes more and more evident as I shed your skin and release it back to where it came from. (I am a rose I am an onion).



It is so easy to change another's day, week, month, life--it is so easy to elicit divinity, for it is everywhere; waiting inside of the ugliest things. I am mad with love. I beam it in every direction. My joy is so deep that I can hardly contain it. One day, I will explode and seep, like ashes, into the lungs of everything.

Eel Shock Kinko's

"We are like shadows who are in love with the sun. When the intensity of light appears, we vanish--chasing ourselves away"
-Rumi


I want to imagine that purity has been tainted and question the meaning of purity; of tainted. Something must be renounced and then something else....

Laziness?
Regret?
Indecision?

Lately I know:

Benevolence and ease-the illusory promises that accompany hard work towards universal peace-emerge from left field in the form of angels that move in and soften blows. We seek to procrastinate to add to the magnanimity of a task or situation--or perhaps to remind ourselves that it is never as difficult as we think it will be and the ripples of one drop in a serene pool cannot be measured or anticipated.

The quiet ones have the most to talk about.

Many feel that we must emit to release, but extended periods of silence allow the foremost to loose potency unacknowledged and die as the stock pile moves up in line to meet the same fate. A clean slate, a clean canvas reveals the true nature of inserted components usually un-noticed by our deadened senses.

Each plug is a sacrament, for example: Consuming something electric causes an electric presence in the body. Souls then pass on through an untimely death like a posession of heaven; of the kinko's on 45th and Rooseveldt. Are we to invoke and thus stimulate or shy away for the peace brought by a lack of information? Our bodies and cushion doesn't decay with age it only follows life's tendency to supply what is needed and dissipates as we replace the blanket of protection over broad areas with categories and refinement of tastes brought by wisdom--saving time and sharpening the direction of experience. We trade accrued knowledge for an agreement that once we know, we will be expected to act accordingly. Could this possibly be the deal with the devil that is so often referenced? I must say no for heaven is found in a lack of discrepancy between it's bliss and the cleansing fires of hell (as far as I know).



And to my beloved in all of your sheathes and manifestations:


Nothing is magnanimous, nothing is anti-climactic. I follow my unfolding heaven and the language of coins from coast to desert, from assholes to angels to realize the deeper echelons of ambiguity. If only I could broadcast the ways that my curiosity has severed from my emotional affectation. If only I cold enter an exchange with an initial and universal understanding that I rely on nothing but change and bearing witness; that I merge with people, things, places to satisfy my desire to know what will happen...to understand my own reactions. If only I could eradicate fear from every being--including myself. Every "you statement" is a projection--right? I was told (by one who knows) recently that we can never really love anyone but ourselves. This was a difficult thing to accept for most people until we remember to wonder if anyone or anything actually exists....

We can only be sure that it all acts as a mirror and we gravitate towards that/those who create a pleasing reflection; the challenge is to avoid damaging the mirror or realize that the same reflection can be found in many places; many reflections may be found in the same places. This requires a sense of reality untainted by expectations and an understanding that stability is found inside. I have recently seen this and come to a desire to cease running from one to another; to incorporate and allow to accompany- ankle weights are fuel as they build strength. I suspect that this is a point of maturity-being that I am a 28 year old woman and once we understand, we are expected to act accordingly.

With commuincation as a guise for the exchange of energy, we dance gaily through an array of love songs to our selves until we find the most pleasing and then we play it over and over again in different keys attaining an ever-deepening understanding of it--as the choreography swells and deflates with intensity.

Oh to have space for a different experience--even if to calibrate our chosen from time to time. Perhaps repetition and desire for new or boredom act as fuel, and renunciation creates space for a path....I fear entrapment-making open doors differentiate between homes and cages. To keep one foot out the door prevents me from exploring the depths of a room--so I must either keep stretching and stretching my limbs and eyes or trust my ability to continue exploring regardless of the archetecture of a given space. In this modern age, we thus ponder this query and pine for some established set of guidelines for this new freedom from old traditions as the need that established its roots are deteriorated by self-sufficiency and increased reliance on technology. We must decide which components can be antiquated by the passing of time and development and which are inherant to our fruitful existence.

detox-toxify

My favorite choice is usually "all of the above" and this situation follows suit (people think this is a libra thing--I can't imagine any alternative to this desire to know everything). How does one choose between fun and fun; beauty and beauty? I am often faced with this sort of dilemma. Fortunately I can't lose in such a situation accept to possibly miss a place or event that I am meant to see. Because everything is so beautiful, I strive to be present where I am needed; to ride the crest of each wave as long as I can. Besides, is it really possible to make a wrong move? There is nothing beyond what actually happens, where one actually is at a place and time and regret is illusory denial (this makes things so much easier).

So I was choosing between San Diego, Las Vegas and Colorado; swimming/sunning, money party, and skiing. I decided on Las Vegas for Irish day--since a friend of mine bartends at an Irish Pub in Fremont with a 30ft tall pint on its roof and she's always trying to talk my zennified self into drinking towards stupor with her and her cronies. Where better to spend my drunken ancestory's favorite baseless holiday? Besides, an arguement with my Phoenix loves about freedom, unsolicited helping, people assuming they know what's good for one-another, violence (psychological), control and why I shouldn't rearrange other people's houses without asking (these are some of my favorite topics for fuming) had shot me out of there like a cannon. This doesn't happen often these days-but I was on an Irish war path with perfect timing--of course...

It couldn't have been better. What other culture has a holiday where everyone becomes a member for a day and are thus expected to wear green for fear of corporeal punishment as an alternative and drink themselves mad while hopping about wildly to bagpipes? Beyond this, the event that this day marks has nothing to do with the actual mode of celebration and talk about it is generally avoided as it dampens the party. The drunker I got, the more proud I became of my heritage. Ironically, most of the people in the mob that congealed around me that night were surfers from San Diego and some had even been there in the days prior when I was burning to go.

I drove four hours to get there, turned around, drove back to Arizona a day later (why not?) and stopped in my favorite magic heaven watering cleansing spot: the hotsprings in the desert (I will not mention the name, for it works better as a secret) to cleanse the devil from my body and press the reset button on my mind. After some conversations with various interestings, I met Dharmanatha and Parameshvari, the traveling mantra yogis. These people, once an emergency room physician and an art therapist, now travel from bliss to bliss in their hot little luxury motor home and reside until the next place draws them, making attempts to relax even further. We were all of such a similar mind and I basked in them under the full understanding that I could commune with them forever (on some level, I'm sure that I am) and be so happy--which plays perfectly into my vow to never be one place wishing I was in another. We share a common desire to find like minds, exchange knowledge and nurturing, compounding enlightenment and strengthening each other's ability to be source, as we spindle en masse ever further in to the violet stratosphere.

This day with them began with a gentleman passing away in the private sunset tub at the ripe age of 72. I believe he must have done that on purpose, for I cannot think of a better way to go. I've soaked in that water feeling that I had the option to just melt completely and this verified it. That night, after a full day of cleansing, we built a fire and had a ceremony for the soul of Eugene. We danced circles around the snake-biting light, chanting the Giatri Mantra in the ancient way handed to them from Russil Paul, whom they had just spent the last year with. I was even swallowing fear as power began to surge. We were surrounded by the large grove of bamboo which served as a condominium-like communal nest for the millions of birds that find sanctuary at this oasis and they made a running commentary of our strange but appropriate behavior--thus rising and falling in volume with opulent moments and cawing with excitement at the pinnacle, as though they could sense a sunrise in the release of this man's soul.

My tent was pitched near the site of this ceremony, so afterwards I curled up in a little cocoon charged with ethereal nurturing beyond anything my broken heart and tattered body could wish for.

I returned to Phoenix, armed with the knowledge that I would be fed and nurtured by these or kindred minds, anywhere we cross paths in exchange for yoga lessons, art lessons or the passing on of whatever I might be interested in at the moment and a working knowledge of how effective such an exchange can be; how easilly I could and should arrange this with my angels forever everywhere. I returned to Phoenix with the cold I had caught from a surfer (never again will I get drunk and make out with surfers) making its presence known and crawled right into the arms of my beloveds--anger forgotten and full of honesty, admonitions, understanding and growth--as conflict breeds intimacy. We spent some days patching up wounds and saying proper goodbyes and then I left some days later with happy sorrowful bon voyage and pieces of them to take with me. The ocean called....

Of course I stopped at the hotsprings on the way out, expecting to stay for an hour and ended up there for two days. Dharmanatha and Parameshvari had found an organic farm in the middle of the desert near the hot springs. The owner travels the world in search of seeds and grows exotic veggies: white carrots and purple broccoli et al. We soaked, did moonlight yoga in a temple cave formed by the arches within a hollowed out section in the thick grove of bamboo and went mining for crystal/fire agats in the desert. I taught them to wrap with wire and this reignited my interest in making jewelry with found objects. I have always had a facination with found object sculpture and have planned on adopting abstract art. This new medium combines these two interests into some wearable yumminess (now available, custom made!).

And onward to Encinitas (advised by the mantra yogis to bypass San Diego completely), to answer the pull of the ocean, to feed it the remnants of my experiences in exchange for cleansing and the recharge pulled out of plugging into the endless mystery of our reflecting world.

Caged Bird

There are too many intriguing places to go right now. My top desire is for Vipassana.....Beyond that lies Maui, Vegas, Thailand. I'm like a deer caught in giant headlights. Aren't headlights soon followed by an imminent course of future events? These headlights are more like two suns--or six glorious suns all begging me to bask in them. When ever I'm in a seemingly confusing position like this place here now, I tend to convince myself that I'm being faced with some sort of a choice. In retrospect I always wonder why I wondered so....things always turn out as they do.

I could chase the money-painting-outdoor yoga/need for angels in Vegas. Both of my parents seem to support this option with most excitement. It's funny when they agree....(That should tell me something right there). There is something to working for a few months and walking away with lots of extra money. Suppose I did that and then died in a month and a half...would I still be happy with my decision? There is a sort of anarchism involved with making decisions that are not based on money.

There are a constant stream of shows, new art and music flowing through the city--not to mention the pouring in of new people from all over who come to enjoy them...or to sit in casinos at four in the morning wondering what to do with themselves and afraid to sleep under the duress of a pressure to have fun at every moment since one can in Vegas. There is an opportunity to not only flourish financially, but to flourish on my passion for painting and writhing around en masse in a fashion deemed beyond/above sexuality in most cases. There are beautiful surroundings and yoga hike companies already established that I could join in on. There are ample sinners and artists to take part in my escapades/involve me (there are everywhere, I suspect). Imagine digging one's way into the stinky center of the Vegas onion!

I could stay here in Phoenix on the suspicion that I came here for more than just this... Is it better to stay in a place for a while or keep moving? Whatever choice I make will answer this question...though I will never know the answer since there is only what I know from experience...

My loved ones here want me to stay. I have made deep lasting friendships with people whom would act as good collaborators next week to next year in a wacky city that seems interested in providing any silly idea with as much enthusiasm as it can handle. I'm curious about a summer in Arizona--I've heard it's quite detoxifying--which of course breeds dreams of group fasts and hot yoga in broad daylight.I got some real big girl jobs teaching yoga and could have more if I wanted. I doubt I will ever enjoy a job as much as I enjoy teaching yoga-helping people delve into themselves is such a rush!

I have a habit of squirreling my way into a club/life/circle based on my conception of the way that things will be and then fighting off a waning interest when reality sets in. I write this under the conviction that reality is relative and doesn't necessarily have to "set in". I will often hesitate to pursue any options that involve a commitment out of fear of sacrificing freedom. Here now at this crossroads, I hesitate to stay as I wait to go for I don't know which one....I know that all I have to do is set something in motion....I desire constant magic and synchronicity--is that unreasonable?

If I had my wish it would be for paradise....so why not? And so I ask myself about the most outlandish option...Australia?? Maui...I am drawn between a desire to seek out the outcome of given opportunities and the knowledge that something will happen wherever I go......I rest under and fight against the notion that paradise lives only inside of me. So then why stay or go anywhere?

Vegas

The masculine aspect of my body's methodology for providing a functional and beautiful platform for my head to perch (my shoulder) is currently experiencing pain. I am almost happy for this pain as a reason for this trip involves a desire to develop my masculine strength to support a world....or a head....I mention this to the right people every chance I get and am healing slowly, garnering many massages. Injury knocks at my door....a warning that I can take or look back on? A small ache that is nothing...?

I recently stopped believing in attributing a function or emotion to one side of the feminine/masculine dichotomy. To distinguish between the two is currently a popular endeavor: but how does one expect to change the nature of our society while indulging in such polarity...such judgment? What is left beyond this?

The thing about Vegas is that it has a tremendous foundation. Lots and lots of money, urban sprawl ghost towns just waiting to be filled with nuclear family units, skiing within an hour's drive There is even one of the largest existing underground aquifers under the city. Mandalay Bay is built on top of huge mechanized jacks because it is sinking. There is an interest in the arts, natural healing, community organization and health, but few people to supply the demand for these things--thus creating a large opportunity for angels who are willing to come to sin city.

I had planned to be in Vegas for a few days. I have an Iranian Royal Yoga star here--the Duke, and he has a new fiancee (call her Bella) who is a psychologist--she has a Persian talk show--like Opera. I wanted to visit him and to meet her. It is amazing to work with someone and then to see them a year later; the growth and changes are so obvious. The Duke has calmed and embraced a glow of health and vitality--simply through being in the presence of his magnificent love. She is the type of person who can describe a feeling so simply, so concise, that I don't realize the magnitude of the statement for minutes..or even hours. She is perfectly made up even first thing in the morning. I doubt there is ever a time when she looses control of her self. I love to be around strong women. Lately I trust women first and seek out their company, for they are so healing and they strengthen the part of me that is nurturing.

After a few days I left this place with nowhere to go and no plans. Within a few hours and a call out to www.couchsurfing.com (oh wow what a cool organization!), I landed a nook in hot girl pad, downtown just three blocks off the strip. Lana, who moved here from New Orleans after blowing through Katrina, works at an Irish pub that has a twenty foot tall beer on its roof. She's an absolute riot with a life full of awesome girlfriends and southern manly men that she imported who fix things for her and come over to give hour-long neck massages just because they enjoy it. I was at her pub a few nights ago to see a local Irish band that plays on Friday nights--noticing the inordinate amount of Rod Stewart covers being spewed out of this hot talent and who should pop in but a Rod Stewart impersonator! It was like a nightmare....



From this point, all of my dreams are coming true in Vegas. A week and change later, I'm still here, because it won't let me leave. I spent an evening in the VIP Section of a club with people from 'The Hills'-some reality TV show. There was a weedley white guy performing who sang and danced exactly like Michael Jackson. I arrived here just in time for the Art Walk in the small, but close-knit and active arts community downtown. I met a clothing designer who is coming up with clothing ideas that I had and took notes for in college and it's happening in front of my very face and being told to me--developed with me! I put my art portfolio on craigslist and was sought out and commissioned to paint murals on lamps that came from the Playboy mansion to be displayed in a hot designer vintage store in a big new mall in the Pallazo (anniecreamcheese.com). My commissioner is on my perfect wavelength and consistently gives me the ideas that I already had, or describes preferences that have already been put into action--a sign that I am in the perfect place at the perfect time to be sure. There is currently a porn convention this weekend (the AFN awards)....Vegas at its skeeziest--how to resist? Temptation knocks at my door....A warning that I can take or look back on? A small action that is nothing?



Or I could do yoga all weekend instead...I've been spending time at the Butterfly Tribe House in NW Vegas. Last night I had dinner with the Butterfly family and friends who are all artists, healers and world travelers. There are two of the most adorable children ever-a two year old and a seven year old and a man in his eighties who traveled to China when he was 65 to go to elementary school with children and study the language. We then sat up until four o'clock in the morning meditating talking and playing crystal bowls with another yoga instructor in the community who was on the ninth day of a master
cleanse fast and came to strengthen herself through nurturing us. This morning we did yoga and then the seven-year-old made us breakfast to prepare us for drum circles and a day of yoga photographs at RedRocks.

I plan to leave on Monday or Tuesday--as soon as I finish this painting project...

I recently realized that my only real responsibility in this life is to enjoy myself. With all of the misery, my joy is a matter of crucial importance.
This year....for just one year I implore you to:


Row row row your boat
Gently down the stream
merrily merrily merrily merrily
Life is but a dream.

Thank you, distant loves....May you know the meaning of love

Model Yoga

Immediately upon entering Southern California, I learned about a wonderful phenomenon called, "barbie feet". This involves simultaneously pointing one's feet and flexing them to create a sort of barbie foot out of one's own human foot. Not only does this cause prettiness, but it also properly protects a bent and slightly twisted stretching knee with it's flex, while strengthening and lengthening with a point. My toes are now spreading with a promise of sometime moving independently and according to the commands of my brain.

Since then I'm obsessed with it. One reason for my addiction to yoga is my tendency to learn some small movement that totally re conceptualizes my concept of body, just when I start to think that I have everything figured out. I have a feeling that this process will continue for the duration; with the promise of changes involved with aging and growing, I have endless entertainment ahead of me forever!

LA is always more fun than people make it out to be. Iris and I stayed with a friend of hers, Sunshine, in a beautiful little jungle flat, one block from Venice Beach. Iris and Sunshine are both ethereally beautiful women and in fact earn a portion of their income from modeling. It was interesting for me--one who bows in and out of different compositions and tends to allow whims and chaos to dominate my style--to spend full days and nights in LA with beings of such poise. Iris is very centered and this was a healing/contemplation trip for her, which led to days spent relaxing and journaling on the beach, long conversations over tea and yoga classes in places famous for pumping out gurus.

I had been intent on attending a particular New Year's Eve party at a warehouse downtown since the Summer and was excited to watch my dreams unfolding into reality. I managed to get a job at the party as a Champagne girl. I had also hunted down some Space Virgins who got me on the list at another party down the street, so I was figuring out how to clone myself in order to take in everything. I was sure that the night was fool-proof would offer astronomical realms of crazy good times.

The thing about people on Ecstasy is that they are fun and interesting if one is on it as well, but somewhat overwhelming if one is not sharing that aspect of the experience. En-masse, there is a focused and purposeful energy exchange that happens and few boundaries surrounding the taking and giving. To productively merge with a group like that without the drug requires a desire and effort towards absorbing energy from the universe and people, so that one may give without getting drained. I'm still wavering back and forth between deep contemplation of energetic vampirism vs conscious giving/taking and a pervasive knowledge that I can give with reckless abandon and always get more energy from the endless source surrounding and within me. In a situation where it is being rapidly absorbed, it is easy for me to think too much--thus causing me to run hot and cold throughout an evening.

That, combined with the LA "game"-driven need to explain everything that one has accomplished or can offer within the first five minutes of conversation, the strict competition that some residents perceive in every social situation, people's inability to elaborate on conversational subjects amidst the distraction of my oh-so-feelable body parts and the slamming music/decor made for an interesting evening to say the least. At one point I returned to my safe zone behind the DJ booth (my friend was a dj there) to breath away an alienated stint, and found my friend, Dr. Hottiekins having a drunken cow over the notion that no one was really enjoying themselves, they were all just acting. I suppose the only conclusion that one could come to in that situation is that people really are having fun, just a different definition of it because they don't know anything beyond that. Perhaps being from Seattle, the land of extreme darkness and light, makes it difficult to find consolation in this compromise.

At one point, as a friend and I stood face-to-face in conversation, a girl came up and put one hand on either of our shoulders and said "you're pretty". Her eyes were as big as saucers and her fingers dug into our sleeves lightly, as though she was keeping herself from clutching and begging us with her mind to please allow her to keep touching us; to please not make her let go. That confirmed my suspicions and validated my sometimes over-analytical imagination. Of course, we do manifest our own reality; I'm sure I wouldn't have noticed, had I just given over to the movement of the gathering without fear and trusted my ability to generate energy for these ecstatic freaks. In retrospect, I regard situations like those as opportunities to learn how to act as a source in any situation. I guess I'm just not sure whether I want to be the food or the feeding. As a vegetarian and student of ahimsa (non-violence), this is a difficult choice--for I have been both.

I spent the next day exhausted and slept it away. Iris and I made a trip to Francesca's home in happy land (the hills) to visit the donkeys and the very large Finlandian horse. We took walks on the Beach, went out to breakfast and got our nails done. Iris left a few days later and with her gone, I could think of no other reason to stay. I laid on the beach one more time to say goodbye and the mobile massage therapist came skipping by to ask me if I needed a massage. My body ached and I was getting ready to drive, so I chose to believe that he was authentically sent to heal me rather than to feel me up. It was a wonderfully effective healing session--irregardless of his motives because I deemed it so.


I got in my car with no plan and Vegas whispered that I should go....stay for a day or two...Why miss Vegas? I had certainly been primed.....