Shade of the Tree

"Where are you my smallest child??? Have you run to the cool of the shade of the trees? In the park where the air is so fresh and cool that you feel the need to inhale deeply..........walk slowly through that park as the asphalt begins just over there......... I miss you! I love you! K-Mommy”

Lying, face down in the sweet green grass 

Breaths coming in gasps 

she is dying. 

she has fled the confines of her bed, her prison. 

she has shed the robe that had bound her too tightly. 

and, now, here she lies. 

naked and bare 

exposed to the earth. 

voices from another time shouting.... "no" "rise" "keep fighting" "stay with us" 

she raises her single index finger,

as if to say "give me a minute" 

knowing that a minute is all she has.  

she whispers. "be quiet and I will describe death to you" 

her eyes dilate

and the intense light feels dark. 

the earth is humming. 

and she hums with it. 

in tune 

in the moment she wonders if she has ever been this alive before? 

at one with the earth and at peace with herself. 

she dies.

Simplify

 

Dust in My Eyes

“I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.”

 ~Charles Horton Cooley~

The Buddha said there are three types of people. The first is born with their eyes fully open, they are the rarest. Most are born with their eyes fully caked in mud. They will never awaken. But a few are born with merely dust in their eyes; needing only to find the tools and the teacher to help them remove this dust and to awaken. How do we find the tools and the teacher? The guru? When most of us have been buried in the debris of our parents and the chaos of others, ancestral demons handed down generation after generation, trained from birth by society to consume or be consumed. How do we let go? Let go of not only our past but our material possessions as well; the things that bind us to this earth and remove us from the reality of our true selves - our true natures! Who were you before you were born? Where did you come from? Who would you be if owned nothing? Had nothing? Hoarded nothing? When you know this, and you do not question the reality of your divinity - then, and only then, the dust begins to move. And who will you be after you die? And where do you go? The cosmic universe is merely an ocean and we are merely waves. Neither lasting forever nor never existing. Divinity. Impermanence.

UNIVERSAL COSMIC BLISS! 

Are you talking to me?

Trust It

“I used to feel impatient with the old me: why was she wasting time? why was she with that man? at that appointment? forgetting to say the most important thing? why wasn’t she wiser, more productive, happier? But lately, I’ve begun to feel a tenderness for her; a welling up of tears in the back of my throat when I remember her. I think: she’s doing the best that she can. She survived! And she is still trying so hard! 

We are so many selves. It’s not just the long-ago child within us who needs tenderness and inclusion, but the person we were last year, the person that we wanted to be yesterday, the one we tried to become in one new job or in one winter. Or in one love affair or in one house that even now when we close our eyes we can smell the rooms of. What brings together these ever shifting selves of infinite reactions and returning is this: there is always one true inner voice. Trust it.” ~Gloria Steinem~

“Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.” ~Victor Frankl~

2/11/77

“We grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves.” ~Mary Lamberton Becker~

“A woman wins by giving herself and other women permission: to eat, to be sexual, to age, to wear a boiler suit or a paste tiara or a Balenciaga gown or a secondhand opera cloak or combat boots, to cover-up or to go practically naked; to do whatever she chooses in following her own aesthetic. A woman wins when she feels that what each woman does with her own body is her own business.” ~Gloria Steinem~

This is Me.

This is 45.

I am in Love…

With myself,

With my life,

With the mystery,

With the mountains,

With the deserts,

With the seas,

With the grizzly,

With the rattlesnake,

With the shark,

With Shiva,

With my husband,

With my children,

With my family,

With my friends,

With you,

And, with everyone.

Ten Commandments

God, Please Help Me Today,

To Cultivate Life

To Be Generous 

To Be Loving

To Speak My Truth 

To Own Nothing 

To Be Healthy 

To Be Content 

To Know Myself 

To Cultivate Compassion 

And To Remain Awake and Aware

Born A Woman

“Tears are tears, suffering is suffering, and our feelings are to be trusted.” 

~Gloria Steinem~

Was I Four

Or Was I Three

Was it the 

Wee Bear

Or Was it just

Them Two

I know.

I remember.

I’ve always known.

I’ve always remembered.

I saw the 

Fear in their eyes

When they asked,

Do you Remember 

The Wee Bear?

Yes, haha.

Laughing instead of Crying 

The silent tears still

Falling

Innocence Destroyed

Trust Annihilated

Growth Stunted

Entire Future Changed

Irreversibly Irrevocably Inevitability 

Ancestral Demons

Handed down

Generation after Generation 

The only one who could have

Saved me

Then, and Then again

And Again 

Blinded in her Childish Allegiance 

To Them

And not to Me

Her Body housed me,

Grew me

Gifted me, Life.

Her soul stayed closed to me,

Never let me in

Her heart an Iron Door

Forever Locked

Apologies Amends Acknowledgement 

Accountability!

 

Never to come.

They gave me their Demons,

All Three of Them

Through Misdeeds and Misactions

Now my battle concludes.

Eradication Exorcism Ejection 

Rejecting Shame.

The Shame

Was never mine 

To own

Never belonging to me

Placed on Me

Placed on Woman 

With open hands

I give back

The shame that

You Earned

We Are All God’s Creatures

“Rather than God bless America, or whatever country you happen to reside in, Allah save our people, or Krishna bless those who believe in you, there is a simple GOD BLESS HUMANITY! Let me do all that I can to treat everyone, without exception, with goodness and kindness, as all of those whom we revere as spiritual masters have taught us by the example.” ~Wayne Dyer~

~I Honor The Place In You Where We Are All One~

“All things share the same breath: the beast, the tree, the human… What are people without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, people would die from a great loneliness of spirit.” ~Chief Seattle~

Teacher

“Breathing in and out, I am aware of the fact that I am of the nature to die; I cannot escape dying. I am of the nature to grow old; I cannot escape old age. I am of the nature to get sick; I cannot avoid sickness. Everything I cherish, treasure and cling to today, I will have to abandon one day. The only thing I can carry with me is the fruit of my own actions. I cannot bring along with me anything else, except the fruit of my actions in terms of thought, speech and bodily action.”

~Thích Nhất Hạnh~  10/11/26-01/22/22

“Breathing In

I know that I am Breathing In

Breathing Out

I know that I am Breathing Out”

“Flower fresh, Mountain solid”

Namaste Thay

Third Eye

Ajna! Light Chakra! 

Sungaze: Close your eyes, face the sun, focus your gaze on the space between your eyebrows. Feel the sun entering. Opening. 

Intuition 

     Visualization 

          Clairvoyance 

               Vision

Yantra Yoga: Meditate on a visual symbol, Mandala. Eyes open, imprinting the image on your mind. Eyes closed, visualizing the image in the space between your brows. Try using a pine cone.

Mantra: Om, pronounced Aum. 

Visualize your pineal gland. Located approximately mid-brain, at the level of the third eye. 

Restore your pineal gland and circadian rhythms with good sleep health. Rise every day at 6am and see bright light. Retire every night at 10pm in a dark, quiet, cold space. Eat only between 10am-6pm. 

KRISHNA! is the God of the third eye chakra. Krishna is Love. Love Krishna, Sing to Krishna.

Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare

Chant: I See

Study: Owls, learn all you can. Seek them.

The Voice That Knows

Don’t stop. Keep climbing.

You won’t get there,

If you do not know where you are going.

Sit down. Shut up.

LISTEN.

To the Shiva within.

That voice that knows.

Jesus - Allah - Krishna - Buddha - Infinite 

That voice that waits for you to hear!

Once heard, Never forgotten.

“A journey of a Thousand miles,

Begins with a single step.”

Take It!

And know where you are going.