this will also change.

in the sky / los angeles burning.

2009-08-29T00:24:00.000-07:00

8/28

rising above and looking down
i am overwhelmed by this growing love
i have for los angeles.
pulling away,
different facets come to surface
weaving textures
of people who live and breathe this vastness
and would die no where else
but in these clouds that now envelope me.

the remains of smokey fields
that burned the rolling hills into
a volcano of purple and pink
outside your window.
we collide amongst energies
at perpetual war on the fields
of this loving city that is
begging for the dance.

consumed by its longing
so much we can't see.
misinterpreting one anothers edges
as if we ourselves cannot open
and close without good conscience.

i am learning to let go of dwelling
to make growth in each moment
as if chose to be here.
and i did. i am here.
i love this city. this life.
this precious everything.

so dance with me.
you sparkling fools. you stubborn dreamers.
you confused teachers and lonely lovers.
sleepyheads
coming from behind the front.
i look for you.
silent and still
as it moves all around us.

i wonder
when i return home
is it written on my face
have my eyes changed
and is my skin toned
permanently browned
by 100 degree smog
and the intricacies of this
social language in which
i have nestled in a cocoon with you,
strange strangers.
where i feel alive and challenged
to question energy
so that i may one day bloom.

come.
let us throw these odes of opinionated love
into the air
along with the ashes of every memory
we hold dear.
and expect nothing but the now
and all that entails.

snails can sleep for 3 years.
and we can sleep forever
as it all burns down.

2009-07-19T02:28:00.000-07:00

currently under self-observation.

02/01/09

2009-02-16T15:24:00.000-08:00

it's been a while and so much has changed. the l.a. river looks lived in by humans fishing for clothes and shelter and here i am claiming to live on an island with no parking. someone died and someone is about to be born and i'm not sure what records to play anymore. i feel thrown off but ok with the feeling of floating. because the aim is the anchor and i'm constantly trying to to understand..feel everything i have ever felt along with what i am feeling now. a small sense of security in my self-expression, in momentary confidence, in subtle whisper to the sky and to whoever is listening.

vibrationally speaking, support looks like silent awareness.

"we are not conscious. we are not free. we constantly lie to ourselves. we do not know ourselves. we constantly react, adapt and adapt, thinking we are evolving..." loving words to remind me i am here. i am not there. but i can be.

peer contemplation

2009-01-23T23:53:00.000-08:00

o1.05.09
somewhere in ilocos sur

we are thought to get along with our peer group.
in my reorganization of selves,
i'm contemplating who i really relate to.
currently, i feel out of place with my "expected" peer group,
on top of just feeling out of place.
in studying "essence" and "personality",
i find sense in my connection to elders and children.
i guess it is the simplicity and unecessary chatter.
together, we are shaped to learn and to share.

family is an interesting factor.
given i am blessed with unconditional love of my own nucleus.
i also see what i have learned in growing up
that has shaped my personality,
not all of which i want to nurture.

love, however, i wonder
if planted in the essence of all sentient beings,
is a quiet seed
waiting to be noticed.
uncovered only by the consciousness of the container.
a gift from the unknown
for those who wish to know more.
is not love the thirst for knowledge
and the desire for oneness?

the differences...
been dreaming about past peer groups
and current lone rangers
dreamers of every age.

just needing to find comfort
in my small contribution to it all
to know it comes from my essence
as an offering of progress and spirit
to the collective effort
toward higher existence
for all.

balikbayan journals

2009-01-23T23:01:00.000-08:00

o1.03.09
vigan, ilocos sur

the lush is green.
the breeze is full.
old shells where lines continue
with the face of age.
mechanic with emotion,
feelings
are energy floating about
tumbling and sticking to one another
framed with the illusion of progress
or evolution.
to a certain degree, we adapt
in our own way, find better ways
to deal with situations
better reasons as to why things happen.
validate the whys.

surrounded by mountains and ocean breeze,
i question the whereabouts of my being.
the map of selves i have been obsessed with all my life.
am i coming to a progressive understanding or
am i validating where i wish to be
and am not yet really there?
either way, there is a magnetic center
somewhere.

there has been conscious decisions
and unexplainable choices.
there is a knowledge and always emotion.
to observe is to be quiet.
to listen is to be still.
i want to learn the most difficult to face
so i can grow toward my higher ....
even if only a vision now.
each moment, an opportunity
to remember this,

express only love.

how appropriate that today is my father's birthday.

wait and see.

2008-11-19T10:18:00.001-08:00

we're all here.

Letter No. 8

2008-06-24T00:38:00.000-07:00

Borgeby gard, Fladie, Sweden
August 12, 1904

I want to talk to you again for a little while, dear Mr. Kappus, although there is almost nothing I can say that will help you, and I can hardly find one useful word. You have had many sadnesses, large ones, which passed. And you say that even this passing was difficult and upsetting for you. But please, ask yourself whether these large sadnesses haven't rather gone right through you. Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad. The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in order to drown them out with the noise; like diseases that are treated superficially and foolishly, they just withdraw and after a short interval break out again all the more terribly; and gather inside us and are life, are life that is unlived, rejected, lost, life that we can die of. If only it were possible for us to see farther than our knowledge reaches, and even a little beyond the outworks of our presentiment, perhaps we would bear our sadnesses with greater trust than we have in our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing.

It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing. That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, - is already in our bloodstream. And we don't know what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can't say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens. And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than that other loud and accidental point of time when it happens to us as if from outside. The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate; and later on, when it "happens" (that is, steps forth out of us to other people), we will feel related and close to it in our innermost being. And that is necessary. It is necessary - and toward this point our development will move, little by little - that nothing alien happen to us, but only what has long been our own. People have already had to rethink so many concepts of motion; and they ill also gradually come to realize that what we call fate does not come into us from the outside, but emerges from us. It is only because so many people have not absorbed and transformed their fates while they were living in them that they have not realized what was emerging from them; it was so alien to them that they have not realized what was emerging from them; it was so alien to them that, in their confusion and fear, they thought it must have entered them at the very moment they became aware of it, for they swore they had never before found anything like that inside them. Just as people for a long time had a wrong idea about the sun's motion, they are even now wrong about the motion of what is to come. The future stands still, dear Mr. Kappus, but we move in infinite space.

How could it not be difficult for us?

And to speak of solitude again, it becomes clearer and clearer that fundamentally this is nothing that one can choose or refrain from. We are solitary. We can delude ourselves about this and act as if it were not true. That is all. But how much better it is to recognize that we are alone; yes, even to begin from this realization. It will, of course, make us dizzy; for all points that our eyes used to rest on are taken away from us, there is no longer anything near us, and everything far away is infinitely far. A man taken out of his room and, almost without preparation or transition, placed on the heights of a great mountain range, would feel something like that: an unequalled insecurity, an abandonment to the nameless, would almost annihilate him. He would feel he was falling or think he was being catapulted out into space or exploded into a thousand pieces: what a colossal lie his brain would have to invent in order to catch up with and explain the situation of his senses. That is how all distances, all measures, change for the person who becomes solitary; many of these changes occur suddenly and then, as with the man on the mountaintop, unusual fantasies and strange feelings arise, which seem to grow out beyond all that is bearable. But it is necessary for us to experience that too. We must accept our reality as vastly as we possibly can; everything, even the unprecedented, must be possible within it. This is in the end the only kind of courage that is required of us: the courage to face the strangest, most unusual, most inexplicable experiences that can meet us. The fact that people have in this sense been cowardly has done infinite harm to life; the experiences that are called "apparitions," the whole so-called "spirit world," death, all these Things that are so closely related to us, have through our daily defensiveness been so entirely pushed out of life that the senses with which we might have been able to grasp them have atrophied. To say nothing of God. But the fear of the inexplicable has not only impoverished the reality of the individual; it has also narrowed the relationship between one human being and another, which has as it were been lifted out of the riverbed of infinite possibilities and set down in a fallow place on the bank, where nothing happens. For it is not only indolence that causes human relationships to be repeated from case to case with such unspeakable monotony and boredom; it is timidity before any new, inconceivable experience, which we don't think we can deal with. but only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn't exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his own being. for if we imagine this being of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it is obvious that most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip on which they keep walking back and forth. In this way they have a certain security. And yet how much more human is the dangerous insecurity that drives those prisoners in Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their cells. We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares have been set around us, and there is nothing that should frighten or upset us. We have been put into life as into the element we most accord with, and we have, moreover, through thousands of years of adaptation, come to resemble this life so greatly that when we hold still, through a fortunate mimicry we can hardly be differentiated from everything around us. We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

So you mustn't be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better. In you, dear Mr. Kappus, so much is happening now; you must be patient like someone who is sick, and confident like someone who is recovering; for perhaps you are both. And more: you are also the doctor, who has to watch over himself. But in every sickness there are many days when the doctor can do nothing but wait. And that is what you, insofar as you are your own doctor, must now do, more than anything else.

Don't observe yourself too closely. Don't be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it will be too easy for you to look with blame (that is: morally) at your past, which naturally has a share in everything that now meets you. But whatever errors, wishes, and yearnings of your boyhood are operating in you now are not what you remember and condemn. The extraordinary circumstances of a solitary and helpless childhood are so difficult, so complicated, surrendered to so many influences and at the same time so cut off from all real connection with life that, where a vice enters it, one may not simply call it a vice. One must be so careful with names anyway; it is so often the name of an offense that a life shatters upon, not the nameless and personal action itself, which was perhaps a quite definite necessity of that life and could have been absorbed by it without any trouble. And the expenditure of energy seems to you so great only because you overvalue victory; it is not the "great thing" that you think you have achieved, although you are right about your feeling; the great thing is that there was already something there which you could replace that deception with, something true and real. Without this even your victory would have been just a moral reaction of no great significance; but in fact it has become a part of your life. Your life, dear Mr. Kappus, which I think of with so many good wishes. Do you remember how that life yearned out of childhood toward the "great thing"? I see that it is now yearning forth beyond the great thing toward the greater one. That is why it does not cease to be difficult, but that is also why it will not cease to grow.

And if there is one more thing that I must say to you, it is this: Don't think that the person who is trying to comfort you now lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes give you much pleasure. His life has much trouble and sadness, and remains far behind yours. If it were otherwise, he would never have been able to find those words.

Yours,
Rainer Maria Rilke

lolo

2008-06-16T01:46:00.000-07:00

i had a conversation with lolo like it was one of our last. i swear, i think i can write a story just on what was communicated within those few minutes. in the depth of our language, i felt we drew a circle around who we were, as vast as that is. weaving in and out of spirit and body, it was like we prayed together, laughed at what makes us laugh, cried while talking and offered hopeful words by way of experience. because we both know, that it is what is most reliable...in the end, i heard myself be thankful, in the way that he was thanking me, "for everything." he said.

and then i knew, where i learned it from.

communication and transformation

2008-06-14T04:20:00.000-07:00

in search of the boundaries of transformation. to know what is to be changed and what is changing. one of my favorite words is "organic" because it holds within it process and sincerity, perfection in the natural design. symmetry when you step back and find logic in the process, keeping balance as it is changing. there is sincerity in spontaneity. the element of surprise, creates a certain degree of absurdity that opens the mind to something else. specificity, however, gets lost in the given language.

so how do we use this language to effectively reflect the potential of human transformation toward a higher consciousness? if art is the bridge to the soul. how can we walk across together? it must be intention in full.

learning the vibrational qualities of the soul and the capacity of good will within. locating the critical mass intersection of the internal to reflect the critical mass intersection of the external. what juxtapositions, parallels, senses and elements within this cross section of a critical moment would best create an experience that would cause someone to question something, to consider something new, to feel alone yet not alone, to find an opening somewhere within that would help to create a less divisive culture within and without, through which ultimately a heightened human consciousness is possible.

patience and clarity, compassion and confidence, sincerity and intention, full presence. believe.

fragments of thought toward a greater whole.

outside the .99 store

2008-06-03T02:52:00.000-07:00

a man carrying a sleeping baby, reviewing a receipt while his other three children sit on the bench waiting for the bus.

2008-06-01T21:47:00.000-07:00

my river is running late. please come so i can communicate.

"the line from my heart to my mind is clogged somewhere in my body", expresses the ocean.

vast without a name.

tangiability

2008-05-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

the more that i see tangible reflections of what resonates with me, the more i feel confident in the mold of life i am shaping in front of me. the environment that surrounds, supports in the boundaries of self and selflessness. the community i am beginning to feel is as boundless as the shore i continue to draw. at the moment in the flow of what i believe, i am the author of my own limitations and potential. a scavenger peicing together everything i have carried with me in the trodding of water, the inevitable progression of time, in which we grow, though which all things change, and for how we are moved.

the more solitary i feel, the more i feel one with all things. this is the goal, however, this deepening sense of loneliness challenges and makes me question this path of solitude and why i feel most connected to those who can identify and honor this deep "void" within them. what makes it sad? and what makes it joyous? how can we help one another become more familiar with the unknown? to accept this longing to return to the origin within. more brave to move forward and to share this experience as true for you and for the whole design.

in honor of a messenger...

2008-02-11T13:25:00.000-08:00

..and the message..

Love as seen by His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Recorded in the Year of 1967)

"Love is the sweet expression of life. It is the supreme content of life. Love is the force of life, powerful and sublime.

The flower of life blooms in love and radiates love all around. Life expresses itself through love. The stream of life is a wave on the ocean of love. Life is expressed in the waves of love, and the ocean of love flows in the waves of life.

What a comfort love brings to the heart. The heart tickles with the thought of love, and waves of life begin to roll on the ocean of love.

Every wave of life is full with the ocean of love. Yes, such a life is worth living. Every wave of life, full with the ocean of love. Such a life is life, such a life is worth living.

And who lives such a life of all love, of bliss, of power, and of peace? The fortunate ones, and the fortune is open to all to design their destiny and begin to live life in all love and joy.

The fortunate one uses the instrument of deep meditation, and probes deep into his heart. Then the waves of love gain the depth of the ocean, and the ocean of love fills the heart and fills every particle of being.

Every wave of life then flows in the fullness of love, in the fullness of divine glory, in the fullness of grace, in bliss and peace. The stream of life then flows on the tidal waves of bliss, and the ocean of love permeates every wave of life.

Love is highly sensitive. It is the most delicate power of life. And life is a most dynamic expression of love.

Love is delicate, and at the same time, it is most vital and strong. A tiny, tender wave of love rocks the boat of life. Love takes life from the pangs of separation, to the bliss of eternal union. From the insurmountable pangs of separation, to the unlimited joy of eternal union, swings a tiny, tender wave of love.

What a miracle God has created in love. Let us live it. Let us be in love, and live in love with one another, and say to ourselves, quietly, let thy will be done.

A soft impulse of love is the sole life of a melting heart. A tiny hope of love brings the light of dawn through the darkness of the lengthy night. And love, even as a twinkling of the faintest star, keeps the light at the altar shining.

And in that faintest light of love, someday the willivet (individual) finds his way, and creeps on in silence, in quietness, drawn by the tiny, tiny love which kept the door open in the hope of fulfillment. In the hope of fulfillment that someday, and sometime, the darkness of the night would give way to the brightness of the midday sun in a clear sky.

The catch of love, though tender is firm and strong. The glory of tenderness and strength is the glory of love. One wants to remain tender in the strength of love. The strength of love makes one tender and firm. Makes one weak in wrong, and powerful in right. Brings forgiveness in authority, and grace in all fields of life. And this is the destiny of the fortunate.

Love is the fortune of the fortunate. Abundance of love is the goal of all destiny. Fortunate are those whose hearts flows in love. A loving heart, a heart full of love, is the precious essence of human life.

And that, when it flows in unbounded tidal waves of bliss, it is the glory of the supreme, the blessing of mother divine, and the grace of God.

A wave of love flows over the whole range of life. It sweeps over the whole range of creation. The power of love pilots the plane of life, here there and everywhere.

Love takes life from home to hill, from hill to hill, from home to home. Love is desperately seeking. It keeps the path alive and warms the goal.

The silent force of love knows no barrier. It takes the life from the ruggedness of mountains, to the roughness of the sea, and there, in silence of wilderness, and even so in the noisy horizon of the sea, the vast expansion of the unbounded love from a distance brings a breeze cool and fresh to cool the heart and soothe the pangs of separation.

The delicate and kind hand of love takes life from the prick of thorns, to the softness and tenderness of a rose.

On the softness of the cradle of love, the life swings from the loneliness of a desperate quest, to the rich planes of fulfillment.

A tender spark of love lights the light in loneliness. It burns alive the pangs of the bygone past, and spreads the light of hope and joy and fulfillment. And a tiny spark of love does it.

Love is the most precious gift of God to us, let us use it for all good. Let our life be full with love, let us love and be loving and spread grace around us.

Let not the din of the world, and the thick and thin of life disturb the fullness of love in us. Let us be full of grace, and full of light.

And in the fullness of love, let us be up and awake to serve the will of God and rise to be of real service to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Let the glory of the divine dawn in love. Let the bliss of the divine effulgence, and the light of love permeate our life, and transform our life to the eternal life of the divine being.

Let lovingness spring as the light of the divine. For, the divine is all love in its essential nature, and love is all divine in its truthful expression. The divine is fullness of love, and love is fullness of the divine.

Love is the light of divinity. It presents the divine in man. Love is the divine life in man. Love in our hearts is the divine in heaven.

The divinity of the heaven dwells in our hearts as love. Love in the heart of man is the shrine of God on Earth.

Blessed are those who carry the shrine of God in fullness of love in their hearts. And when the drops of love trickle down the melting heart, the angels in heaven run down to count and keep a record.

No drop of precious love is ever wasted. For every drop of love flows the unbounded ocean of bliss. And the ocean of bliss unfolds the love divine and fills the heart.

Then the eyes lift to God, and God raises his arms and extends his heart. And then the reality dawns.

The stream of man's love finds the ocean of God's love and flows into it. And this is the glory of love. The man and God unite in the eternal ocean of love. Let us bring to our life the glory of this love, which brings the heavens in life on Earth.

"Love of God", someone said, "is an abstract concept". Yes it is abstract. It takes the experience of life to make it concrete.

Love of God is abstract in its infancy, but let us not forget that it begins to be concrete from the very beginning of life and imperceptivity grows, and grows to become concrete, and overtakes our life in full.

In its most infant state, love finds an expression on the lap of mother. In the sweetness of the mother's eye. It grows in toys and playfields, in the sweetness of friends and folks of society. It grows in the sweetness of husband and wife.

With age and experience, the tree of love grows. It grows with the growth of life and evolution, and finds its fulfillment in the eternal love of the omnipresent God, which fills the heart and overthrows the darkness of ignorance.

And then, in the illumination of universal love, the abstract love of God finds concrete expression in everything. All becomes divine radiance of eternal love.

Life finds its meaning in the living presence of God. Every phase of life then saturated with love breathes the living presence of God. Here, there, and everywhere, in this, that, and everything. Nothing but love and living presence of God.

This is how, gradually, the personal love naturally moves on to gain the status of universal love. And universal love moves on to find its expression in personal love.

There is time in life for everything. Life is progressive on the steps of love. And there is a time significant for every step in love. Every plane of love brings fulfillment to the corresponding plane of evolution. All love, in every phase of every drop of it is significant to life.

Love is the supreme blessing of life. The sun shines, and it shines forever in fullness.

It may be that the clouds are gathered. Let them come and go. They go as they come. Take no notice of their coming. You go your way, make your way through the clouds, if they lie on the way. Do not try to dispel them, do not be held by them, they will go the way they have come. They are never found stationary.

But, if you would like to pause to see them wither away, wait for a while…the wind is blowing anyway. It is to clear the clouds from your way. Just wait to see the clouds wither away, and the sun, the same old sun of love will shine again in fullness of its glory.

When night comes, all appears to be dark, but darkness does not last. The light of the dawn comes on and spreads the love and charm of life. So we shall not mind if the darkness of the night sets in for a while. For the light of love can, for certain, not be gone forever.

So we live in love, and we wait in love to grow in life, and gain fulfillment in love eternal.

Love as love is universal. Personal love is concentrated universal love.

Ahh, my heart flows when I say personal love is concentrated universal love. The ocean of universal love flows in the stream of individual love. What a blessing in life. The heart in whom the universal consciousness has dawned, is able to have the force of the unbounded ocean of universal love even in the stream of personal love.

Those who are restricted in their ability to love. Those whose love flows only in restricted channels of isolated objects or individuals. Those who can only like this or that. Those who have no awareness of universal consciousness in their hearts, are like small ponds where the love can flow only as ripples and not as waves of the sea.

Such is the love of most of us. We love today, and rise to fight tomorrow. Let us not bring shame to love. Let us rise to love forever more and more.

When an ocean flows in love, it flows in peace within. When a shallow pond moves to rise high in waves of the ocean, it only stirs the mud at the bottom. And the whole serenity of the pond is spoiled. When a heart, shallow as a pond, seeks to rise high in waves of love, it creates a muddle and brings out the mud that was so far gracefully hidden underneath.

To enjoy the ocean of love, we have to improve the magnitude of our hearts and gain the depth of an ocean, unfathomable and full.

Let us give this status of an ocean to our heart before we let loose of our love to be tossed about by the blowing winds. And having gained the status of the deep, let us open the heart for the ocean of love to flow, and let it flow in fullness. The mighty waves of love will rise in grace and hail the glory of the multiple creation with the bliss of the unity and peace within.

And how do we improve the depth of our heart? By probing deep into the purity of our being. By exploring the finer regions of the impulse of love that murmurs in the silent chamber of our heart.

By diving deep into the stillness of the unbounded, unfathomable ocean of love present within our hearts. By a simple technique of self exploration, or by what is commonly known as the transcendental deep meditation.

It is easy for every one of us to fathom the unfathomable magnitude of the ocean of love present within, and forever enjoy the fullness of heart, in the fullness of life.

Love is fullness. It is all embracing. Love binds. It is the unifying force of life. It extends us unity. It binds, yet binds in freedom. It holds together the bonds of freedom. It knows no discord. Disunity is foreign to love. Discord is foreign to love. Disharmony is foreign to love.

Love is purity. Love is innocence. Love is fullness, oneness and bliss. It brings fulfillment.

Love unifies the scattered ends of life, and brings them all together into an integrated whole. Love is the symbol of life. Lack of love denotes lack of life content. And the show of love without genuine love is a shame to life.

Simple, innocent, natural, normal state of love, without inhibitions, is a divine quality, which is the natural quality of graceful life.

The divine grace lies in the fullness of infant love. And in the abundance of love lies the love of God and love of God's creation.

And when the lover of life finds himself in the unbounded love of cosmic consciousness, he whispers to his God within himself, "My Lord, in the temple of my heart, on the altar of thy glory, my God, my love is full, and thy love is treasured safely. My love for thee is safe, and full in freshness, and purity at the glory of thy altar. My Lord, thy lordship is secured in the shrine of my heart. And when my love flows it spreads the glory in thy creation."

In love of God, the lover of life finds expression of the inexpressible. Cosmic life gains expression in its activity; the thought of cosmic life materialized in the process of thinking. His eyes behold the purpose of creation. His ears hear the music of cosmic life. His hands hold on to cosmic intentions. His feet set the cosmic life in motion. He walks on Earth, yet walks in the destiny of heaven. Angels enjoy his being on Earth.

This is the glory of unity born of love. Let us be in love with all around us. Let us be in love. Let us in love resolve to be in love. For, love is life. And certainly we do not want to step out of life. So let us in love resolve to remain in love, and let us never step out of the boundaries of lovingness. For in love dwells the power of creation, wisdom of life, and strength of all good.

Certainly, our life has to be all in love. The thread of love has woven the garment of our life. We shall keep it spotlessly clean and pure.

Life is a sacred gift of God to us in love. We shall not defy love, and shall not spoil this sacred gift of life.

Love shall be pure in our life. It will help our evolution and cosmic purpose of creation. It will maintain us on high levels of grace and glory of life.

Love shall save us from wrong, and guide our part in life. Love shall forever shine on our way, and the light will guide our steps whether we go slow or fast.

The light of love shall forever be with us on our way. Love shall forever be the anchor of our life. We shall be in love, and love shall be in us. We shall live in love, shall grow in love, and shall find fulfillment in love eternal."

—His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1967)

2008-02-03T21:50:00.000-08:00

I’m getting used to the choppers, the cars, and the nearness of you.

2008-01-31T16:27:00.000-08:00

Naturally woven into the contrast of light and dark, I’m slowly getting comfortable looking at myself in the mirror, recognizing the darkness in my eyes and the lightness of my subtle body slowly taking shape with everything around me. Vibrate. Vibrant.

Easily overwhelming yet decidedly pure, this self-proclaimed process, precious in my hands. Reaching up, I grow faith and hold on to trust. Deepening roots I watch leaves bud, grow tall and crumble into the dirt and I remember the intricacy of my design in this vast system, each ventricle to be touched as a blessed passage, because we know where we come from, and in some ways, where we are going. The flow of grace in the uncertain can be as simple as a smile, a shaft of light, a shift in thinking like walking into a dormant space for the first time in a long while. And soon we carry weight and navigate light, together, welcoming the nature of transformation and the human capacity to love.

home is where the he(art) is.

2008-01-29T19:13:00.001-08:00

Yew House, David Jonason

2008-01-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

Clouds are moving fast above me. And I’m wondering if I’m sitting still enough to gather myself before the next storm. Steadily meditative, I am moving with the flow around me. A natural wave ever present even in stimulation, there is a center I am drawing from, we are drawing from, where we were drawn. A conscious power articulating itself within, a blossom to give voice to, my voice to give name to. What deems me speechless for many reasons, there are not words to give justice, yet it asks for a name anyways. And as I took myself out of the position of naming, so that I may accept all that is in a humble place of experience, I have neglected to see a power in me to co-create. What is within is without and I am the 'source of my own abundance' as much a source of my own misery as much a reflection of good in this world or, a sincere attempt made in good effort. My desire has shifted from want to surrender to higher purpose to self-less service to, sometimes nothing. For the first time, understanding faith as a practice. While cultivating a higher sense of trust in something larger than us, recognizing myself as a vehicle of transformation and a source of love. A blessed power it is to feel compelled to name something, for the sake of letting go, for the sake of a bloom.

So I dig inside the well of my soul for something worthy of this moment. And in so digging, extracting contradictions that are painful to face, still hovering old spaces, abandoned and empty, like ghosts waiting to be named. “It’s the letting be, in the letting go that takes discipline” she says. Acceptance is to let go with the full force of love. The message echoes against these walls as if to will a graceful collapse underneath the sound of my voice, and the silence waits for me like a blue sky after the rain.

2008-01-28T16:03:00.000-08:00

the sound

2007-12-23T11:30:00.000-08:00

"to beauty that sustains" - bell hooks

2007-12-08T18:16:00.000-08:00

uncovering beauty again and again.
understanding true happiness.
accepting the pain of joy.
in your own rhythm,
a process takes shape
on a shaky terrain
with balance in the horizon.
making peace with uncertainty
is knowing at least your will
is certain to fuse your intention.

and the power of your word
makes you speechless sometimes.
to know what you believe in
makes you doubt yourself sometimes
when you confront what is unnecessary.
to unravel the roots of your intention.
intend every moment
and watch it come together.

to draw from the highest will
to serve the larger purpose
with out expecting
anything in return
is to give it all you got

right now.

2007-11-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

2007-11-24T20:02:00.001-08:00

expo 2012

(ma)drid

2007-11-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

luna

2007-11-24T16:36:00.001-08:00

passing moments

2007-11-22T23:20:00.001-08:00

tangier, morocco

lisbon, portugal (bairro alto)

mama in sevilla, spain

my furry friends...thank you.

2007-11-08T05:55:00.001-08:00

shiva

puselhino aka "puzi"

faro

2007-11-08T05:42:00.001-08:00

faro

2007-11-08T05:27:00.000-08:00

o faro

2007-11-08T05:01:00.001-08:00

1 + 1 = 1

2007-11-06T09:46:00.000-08:00

contemplation

2007-10-27T07:39:00.000-07:00

trust.

2007-10-27T07:30:00.001-07:00

cultivate wisely.
reaching for the best fruits.
planting the seed of universal love at the root
of every thought, word, and action
so each moment is an opportunity
to walk on a path of greater purpose.
to create with the creator,
a design worth living for,
worth uncovering,
worth shedding,
worth dissecting
every painful and numbing habit.
this material is not fertile
and we are so much more than we imagined.
all of this
worth letting go a little
to see where the wind carries us.

2007-10-23T09:27:00.000-07:00

where there are no rules
the law of nature
reveals our roles.
we take heed by first
facing what we are not.
humbly, we draw
from trying
and find ourself
with no control
accepting
where we are.

lessons learned:
1. stay away from sheep dogs.

2. so this is what beach dogs are!

inspiration information.

2007-10-17T05:36:00.001-07:00

2007-10-14T04:07:00.000-07:00

you know you are in the thick of cutty country when the dirt road starts ending in bamboo bushes and raging pitbulls on fish-line leashes that are about to snap or when you have to make an unexpected detour due to a herd of sheep as wide of as the hillside coming straight toward you.

it is then that the message becomes clear.

"we are outnumbered", i said to the pups as we turned around.

yet, among the presence of algarvic menhirs (prehistoric rocks) dating back to 3000 BC, something tells me otherwise. remnants of fertility symbols, serpents, and phallic shapes pointing to the sky tells me something is larger than all of us combined.

"the mythical mandrake (mandragora autumnalis) flowers in the valley. since ancient times aphrodisiacal powers have been attributed to this plant, because of its anthropomorphic roots. the name of the valley "amantes" - which means "lovers" - probably originated through people's beliefs in the mandrake as a "love potion" and because of the phallic menhirs found there. medieval writings say the plant had painkilling and sleep inducing qualities, and when pulled up, it shrieked. one could be driven mad by this sound." - guide to monte dos amantes

slavery starts here.

2007-10-12T07:37:00.000-07:00

the first slave market in europe.

lagos, portugal

half open

2007-10-10T07:51:00.001-07:00

lagos, portugal

2007-10-10T07:41:00.000-07:00

2007-10-10T07:07:00.001-07:00

i find peace on the cliffs
with fishermen
speaking a tradition
almost essential.

perhaps the ocean was not meant to be touched
so closely in human scale.

the waves encapsulate relentlessly
yet from a distance
it is forgiveness.

something about smiling when you are alone
singing to the sky
laughing because you can't hold it in
when what you find funny
finds you.

something about the sun blanket on my skin
the wind of vastness
blowing into my hair.
reading the alchemist on a beach
cut out of cliffs
where the gods live in
incessant crashes.

the rocks know
the water is more powerful.

a rickety bicycle and
basil and kale cut from the garden
flowers in a franciscan carrafe
cut from the driveway.
burning fields and bamboo fences
everything converted into sound.
what a gift, a decent conversation is
in the core of silence.
the smell of red earth, salty ocean, and fresh laundry from a clothesline.
the language of the earth
and what draws us human-beings here
in each their own awe
withstanding the test of time.

a day well-present between sun rise and sunset.

and they say i deserve this...

believing is a process
and it begins with a dream
that survives the terrain of disbelief.

friends.

2007-10-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

so, i'm riding on a trail toward the ocean,
and i come upon a herd of cows eating grass.
their bells are clanging.

all of a sudden, the bells stop, and they're staring at me.

"All the cows are looking at me!", i thought, eyes wide and smiling.

brown cows and white doves
never knew they were friends.

an unmarked tower
to an unmarked sun set
hums the ocean back
a salutation
in bodily vibration
i repeat
in yoga stance.

shiva?

oct. 7

2007-10-02T09:39:00.001-07:00

praia da luz

2007-10-02T09:22:00.001-07:00

A journey begins within. To go the “end of the world”, only to uncover the world within. A man with binoculars looking out his window, a woman picking from someone else’s lemon tree. To wake under a mosquito net, in a garage outlined with bird nests, we are all pushing boundaries that do not need to be drawn. Out of deep dream, within a dream, we are hanging on cliffs, as if to take a leap of faith, to trust another being, to feel free to merge to some degree, share space. We step into unknown territory, and for a moment face uncomfortable translation. Tension is understanding that we are separate beings trying to live together on this earth, and perhaps even beyond..if you believe.

walking between two good people.

2007-09-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

today,
corktrees and portuguese marble,
an olive offering to a dying tree,
a walk in pedralva,
on a peace of land.

tomorrow,
puzi, shiva, and me.

the algarve.

2007-09-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

yesterday,

white walls to clear the pallette.

today,

cows eating grass with bells on their collars.

tonight,

the rain.

2007-09-24T12:34:00.001-07:00

chinatown, british columbia

2007-09-24T12:25:00.001-07:00

chinatown, british columbia

2007-09-24T12:21:00.001-07:00

chinatown, british columbia

2007-09-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

chinatown, british columbia

burn.

2007-09-20T21:22:00.000-07:00

the pattern.

2007-09-20T20:57:00.000-07:00

solitaridy.

2007-09-14T14:30:00.000-07:00

impermanentprint.

2007-09-13T23:39:00.000-07:00