Falling Into Myself

and I fall
with the cherry blossoms
in their prime,
joining a dance
with the moist earth,
unfettered
by longings
or flattery,
crushed
by impervious feet
and stone hearts,
who know not yet,
the beauty and joy
of this quiet
impermanence.

i

i am the one
who stands guard
on the fading edge
moving and changing
always a little more
than I would like it to;

i am the one
who paces up and down
the turrets of your being,
with eyes prying open
and scavenging
the faintest challenge;

i am the one
who holds the elements
and ravishing energies
washing over and flowing
inside you
as one mighty river;

i am the one
who leads you home
on that final stretch,
clinging to your burning skin,
leaping into that abyss
between humiliation and hubris.

A Little Bird Once Told Me

and the world looks at me
for inspiration -
how I trust myself
and my skillful wings,
never afraid of sitting
on the branch
that could break
my nest and bones;

I want to tell them
to look beyond
what they see
and think they know;
I want to tell them
how I trust
my friend, the tree,
when I rest my tired wings,
upon her uncertain branches;
and my muse, the sky,
who draws me into
her blue mysteries
at the stroke of every new dawn;
and the wind, my co-traveller,
who holds and lifts me
into nothingness and love,
with his undying arms;

I want you to tell them this -
how a little bird
once told you
her story of freedom,
of trusting
not only her wings,
but all the things
that make her want to fly.

Surfaces

the map of one's destiny
in the lines of the palm,
the clutch of a child's fingers
now lost in the calm,
the dance of happy sunbeams
on leaves, rocks and tin,
the melting of identities
as skin moves against skin,
the feel of music on hairs
dancing and standing on end,
the rub of sand against stone
to shape an old barren land,
the wings of a dragonfly
kissing the face of the wind,
the gently growing ripples
dying against the water's rim;
what else is there?
what more do we need?
for surfaces are portals
to meet ourselves
as gods and kings.

Balance

and my heart
tipped over
to one side
and the other,
juggling
squiggling
careening
plunging
soaring
to new heights,
new depths,
new lengths,
new breadths;
lines becoming curves,
circles becoming spheres,
images digested,
and dissolved
beyond definition;
balance emerging then
not from staying
rooted
in the centre,
but by burning bridges
that cradled a spent self,
moving out all the while
with quivering fingertips,
to touch the seamless sky
and her cerulean affinity
to seek her own
dark, uncertain depths.

Samurai

and the wind asked the tree,
rooted between seasons -
which leaf would be
the next one to go;
and the leaves
they began to dance
and sing their swan song,
while the tree watched on
in a quiet celebration,
knowing it was time
for each warrior
to lay his life down
upon his sword.

and I stood at the edge
where the waves
kissed my toes,
and carried me
into the universe.

Touch-me-not

touch me.

so I can cringe
and fold
into myself.

so I can remember
the pain
of not being touched.

touch me.

so I can touch
myself.

so I can open again.

The Vessel

If you come to me
with a little cup
to be filled,
you will
walk away
with only a cupful.

Come to me
with your
whole self,
empty
of everything
you believe
is you,
and you
will be filled
with the cosmos.

Walking Home

I know the way home.

I can see it
through
the blinding fog
of heavy darkness
swaddling
my trembling self;

I can hear
the drumbeats
of my heart
moving to
a crescendo
with every step;

I can taste
the sea-salt air
that stings and riles
my rusty form
steeped in beliefs
steeled over time;

I can smell
the vestiges
of my old self
after a moulting,
ripping the fibres
of a blood-stained past;

I can feel it
in the contours
of my innards,
filled with a rush
of fresh blood
proclaiming a new birth.

Yes. I know the way home.

Mirrors

I have been fascinated, intrigued, baffled and sometimes disillusioned by the whole idea of 'mirrors' in our life (spiritual) journey. Something didn't seem right to me. I could not resonate with it and so could not really embrace that concept as I walked through my life. Somewhere I did not understand it in a way that felt right in my gut.

Today, the penny suddenly dropped....and I finally found my own truth. Not that it might be different from what people down the ages have been talking about. But today what I saw and how I saw it felt good in my gut. Today I can own it in a way I haven't been able to.

I realised today that my outer world is not a 'reflection' of my inner world. A person I meet or interact with is not a 'mirror' that reflects me and my inner world. That is not my reality. It is what happens in the space in between that determines my reality. It is what happens inside of me when I meet that person, or interact with him/her, or see something in the world outside (like issues related to food, territories, beliefs, religion, sex, money, values etc.). The person or event or situation is only pointing a finger to me.....telling me, showing me where to look....to find that place inside which is making me see what everyone around me is seeing, with different eyes....my eyes. That is what determines my reality. So do I see hunger, poverty, fanaticism, abuse, violence, abnormalities, or amoral acts? Or do I see something else? Do I see those as part of a larger picture of the world....a phase that we need to go through to rethink our ways of being and doing? Or do I see those things as 'not being right' and therefore need fixing, changing and standing up for? What do those 'issues' stir up inside me? How do they make me feel? That is where I need to look.

So then can I tell another that "the world is mirroring you or your feelings"? Can someone be a true mirror?

I believe not. The mirror is me. I have to look. I have to know where to look. Within. I have to get in touch with the feelings that the person or situation evokes. Honestly. Only I know and can know exactly how that makes me feel. Is it fear? Is it love? Or is it a deep knowing?

We cannot hide from ourselves for long. We cannot look away from the mirror....our own self....
the mirror that walks with us all through our lives. If only we choose to pause and look....

Here is a poem by David Whyte that I love that speaks about looking into our own mirror....

  
THE HALF TURN OF YOUR FACE
- by David Whyte

The half turn of your face
toward truth
is the one movement
you will not make.

After all,
having seen it
before,

you wouldn’t want
to take that
path again,

and have to greet yourself
as you are
and tell yourself
what it was like
to have come so far
and all in vain.

But most of all
to remember
how it felt again
to see
reflected
in your own mirror,
the lines
of abandonment
and loss.

And have those words spoken
inviting you back,
the ones you used to say,
the ones you loved
when your body was young
and you trusted
everything you wanted.

Hard to look,
but you know it has to happen
and
that it takes
only the half turn of your face
to scare yourself
to the core.

Seeing again
that strange resolve
in your new reflection.

White Lotus

you bloomed
one dark night,
a solitary white lotus
dancing upon moonbeams
that stoked deep murky waters
of sweet sadness.

your fragrance adrift
on silver ripples -
the kiss of life,
the leash that held
a veering mind, and
a heart longing to flow.

you bloomed that night,
watching life go by -
a mosaic of light and dark
morphing into each other,
waking me up from the dream
that you were there, outside.

Who Am I?

'I' am just an interface where different energies interact, coalesce and move apart.
Just like with every turn of the kaleidoscope, the little glass pieces inside move, come together, or fall apart to create new patterns each time, different energies move, interact and coalesce to form different structures or patterns that 'I' identify with as 'me' at any given point in time.
There is a part that can be 'seen' as 'me' and a part that is there where all this happens, or which makes all this happen, which cannot be 'seen' but can only be felt.

Falling into Yourself

you don't need
a parachute
to free fall
into yourself;
cut off the strings
that bind you,
slow you down,
and keep you away
from plunging into
the black nothingness,
with a throbbing heart
ripped wide open,
now ready
to be swallowed
by the fear -
of not having
a safe, firm ground
to land and rest on,
or the possibility
of a hopeful end.

Let Your Cup Overflow....

love flows
like warm tea
you pour
into a cup,
with a self-forgetting.
let it overflow -
and not be
confined
by the narrow rims
of your mind;

let it be received
with joy
and reverence,
in an empty saucer,
that feels
the warmth
of the tea
in its silent,
pensive
waiting.

there is
a sweetness
and magic
in self-forgetting;
when you lose
yourself,
is when
and where
you find
yourself.

Self-forgetting

a small bunch
of puffy white
jasmine buds,
nod their heads
to the passing wind;
their intrepid dance
lifts me in a flash,
out of myself,
and into
their secure folds -
in bite-size moments
of sweet self-forgetting,
lies a fragrant joy
of self-remembering.

An Offering

when you hold water
in your cupped hands,
can you be so still
that you're neither
holding on or letting go?
and in that moment
of frozen thoughts,
when the desire to drink
and the desire to give,
when the fear to hold on
and the fear to let live,
empty into each other,
an offering is made
unto oneself;
there's no longer a need
to give or receive,
to seek or be sought,
only a bliss - to live, love,
and be, naught!
 

Notes to Myself -1

When I am able to see even an inkling, a sliver of the beauty behind another's deed, words and thoughts, I think I start falling in love with myself just a little more.
When I hold my needs as more important to be filled than another's, I become more self-absorbed.
When I can live in the water that nourishes me, and feel the wetness without getting wet, I get what I need and enjoy the beauty in what another needs.
And then, what I feel is a love that doesn't get into boxes of "you" and "me", but walks on the edge of the two, as "us".

***************

There is a sacredness that I have felt in the pain of unmet needs in my life....there is a beauty in that pain... when I chose to be with the pain rather than meet my needs immediately, when I chose to wait for life to happen and unfold, there was grace, which brought many other special gifts my way....gifts that I did not expect or even think about...but gifts that made me see the beautiful choreography in this wondrous dance of life...life holds something back from you, to give you something else that you need....to complete your journey on this planet....Life is beautiful if we just trust it more than ourselves sometimes.

****************

The first time you fall in love with yourself is when you take your first whiff of air on this planet. Loving oneself starts with living life...it starts with everything that you do or not do, feel or not feel, think or not think.....It is also about not loving yourself. Even when you think you don't love yourself, you are. You cannot help but fall in love with yourself, because that is what you are here for. Whatever you do or not do is an offering to yourself. There are many paths to the shrine of love, including the path that you do not wish to take and don't take.

Self Full

If only I could
fill myself up
with my Self -
so full, so complete,
so every tiny cell
and inter-cellular space
is filled with nothing
but You -
then,
I would float on the wind,
carrying your song
to distant shores,
that rest
in their quiet faith
of forgotten tomorrows;
and I will rest too
for a little while,
to empty myself
to the waves and the trees,
until it is time
to fill myself up,
and rise again.

The Dance

I watch your feet -
as mine follow yours
to an inner rhythm
that only you and I can feel and know;
I watch your hands -
as mine mimic yours
to create invisible mudras
that only you and I can see;
I watch your face -
as mine reflects yours
to unwrap gifts of a brimming heart
that only you and I can touch;
I watch, I hear,
I feel, I yearn,
to embody the Dance,
feel it come alive
inside me again;
I feel the sweet pain
and effervescence
of a fossil self -
being born,
longing to dance,
yet again.