Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Dragons Fly

Lately, I don't know why, I've been noticing dragonflies everywhere I go. And I don't believe in mere coincidences. I believe in personal omens.

The other day, exiting my house in Montreal, I spotted the largest shiny green dragonfly I've ever seen. It buzzed around staying in my line of sight until the end of the road. Its power made me smile, its lightness gave me buoyancy.

Dragonflies, those marvelous creatures with stained glass wings flit about in any direction with prowess. They harness a certain power, flying from water to air, wherever they please. From what I have read, these insects represent a mature sense of self, unfettered by self-created illusions. They are fully invested in growth and living their short lives fully. Resplendent with light, balancing emotions and mental clarity, they buzz effortlessly through life.

It seems these little creatures popping into my field of vision represent the great maturity I have been culturing at this point in my life. I am filled with hope for the future as I myself prepare to fly over the Atlantic.

I believe in personal omens. We only see the signs we want to see, and the natural world has been catching my eye. I am filling with hope and determination, filling with light...

Monday, August 30, 2010

[By chance, I witness nature.]

By chance, I witness nature. Circling above
the trees hawks fly, first
one, then a pair, always promising
strength, challenge, and a far-reaching view.

On walks, dragonflies have drifted in
on their erratic flights, full of light
confident mature spirits, gliding, glinting,
stained glass wings ablur in the heat.

Amidst celebrations of a wedding, a monarch
butterfly floats in the surrounding meadow,
giving the couple a fluttering benediction.

And this morning, sitting up in bed half-awake, I saw
a mighty heron perched at the end of the rocks, at the sea.
It stayed as I approached before taking flight, before the rising
sun. A blessing for a journey of grace and nobility, self-reliance,
a curious exploration, swooping over the water.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

my breath, the ocean

The rise and fall of emotions, happiness
is a delicate moment. All feelings rushing
in, rushing, out. The breath cycles, continual,
waves upon the ocean. I bob, motionless, in motion,
I surrender. I try to ride the crests of my inhales, surf,
a fine balance, centering atop a moment, flowing.

Monday, August 23, 2010

with love

My heart has been quiet, pulsing
inwards, introverted, undetectable.
A subtle foundation, finding strength.

My heart now beats outward, like ripples
on a lake, each pulse a drop,
asking nothing in return.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Boundaries, A Paradox

I've been wrestling with a whole bunch of emotional issues lately. Sometimes it's been uncomfortable, sometimes I've been bitchy, sometimes it's been tough. But at the end of the day, pushing through all that, kernels of truth form, pearls that are cultured from the tumult.

Anxiety, control, need for approval all seem to swirl in my body through my daily life. At times more prominent, at times forgotten.

What I have found a tantalizing and interesting paradox is the concept of solidity combined with fluidity, security with openness, a grounded core that is porous. I find it a wonderful opposition to explore. How can I stay solid in who I am, breathe into my inner strength and safety, while also remaining open to those around me. It is a gentle solidity. Abrasion isn't necessary. With a constant self, situations may arise, positive and negative both, but I do need to breathe back into the constant. A wonderful concept of oppositions combined into one.

It made me think of an interview I heard with Matthew Sanford, a paraplegic yoga teacher, speaking of embodiment and feeling. He says:

"There's a reason why when my son who's six is crying, he needs a hug. It's not just that he needs my love. He needs boundary around his experience. He needs to know that the pain is contained and can be housed, and it won't be limiting his whole being, that he can—he gets a hug and, mmm, he drops into his body. "

What I love about this quote is the expansiveness of our feelings, that mess of life, wide like the universe. These bodies we inhabit are only temporary structures housing a powerful soul. The way I relate to my body, the way I view it and get beyond it, is all a complicated and wonderfully interesting relationship. One that I will forever continue to explore, along with exploring the paradoxical boundaries. The skin has no edge. Staying rooted in my personality but expanding outwards beyond skin and body. A continual dialogue, a continual dance.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

wandering eyes

Years ago, while wearing my glasses, I always
indoors in summer, wore my sunglasses atop my head.
Long days viewing into the heavens, eyes
for the thinking mind, ideas visualize

Lately, in the hottest months, I wear my shades over
my chest, clipped at the juncture of the V of my open
shirt. My eyes have drifted from my mind to my heart, windows
into, windows out to the world. The beat awakes.

Monday, August 16, 2010

extrication

There's a heavy rock lodged in the riverbed
of my chest, sinking deeper as the waters run
past. The mud sucks down, like an anchor
dragging behind. And I dig, around the edge, prying
one clasped finger away at a time, squelching, lifting
the weight, washing the aqueous soot away, holding
the boulder to one day thrust it, fling it ashore, then
my body will float.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, a list of thirty "essentials". From Jack Kerouac.

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside your own house
4. Be in love with your life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see your exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

The Anatomy of a Week

Mondays are full of possibility
Sundays replete with stillness
Friday and Saturday nights loaded with expectation
Wednesdays, and sometimes Thursdays (or maybe somewhere in between) pour a little dread into my heart
And Tuesday? That was the day I was born.

Monday, August 09, 2010

Weight, Lifting

Lay down on me your heavy blankets
Let me feel the weight of existence and thoughts
and gather in, on myself,
slow to my heart's beat and trust
its calming rhythm. And then,
I will rise again, strong, commanding
the weight as a Queen does her furs, imperial
and my eyes, with fire, will smile.

Sunday, August 08, 2010

A Moment, I Smile

Feeling the support for a pair of sandals my mother recently bought with my two fingers, I said, "Ooh, nice sole."

And I smiled at the beauty of homonyms.

All The Support You Need

I had an absolutely wonderfully focused yoga class with Carina at Studio Bliss yesterday. Besides tapping into the pelvic tilt of Boat Pose and growing into power, Carina infused the entire class with a very basic and beautiful thought.

There are the intentions, actions and reactions of life. There really is only so much you can do, so much you can control. A certain measure of life needs to exist in an openness to spontaneity, leaving room, allowing space. Beautiful moments aren't planned. All we can do, said Carina, is align ourselves up with life.

But there are some very basic levels of support at work. Always, the breath, whether conscious or not, sustains us. Life wants us to breathe. Always, the earth, whether you acknowledge it or not, supports us from below. Simply tapping into the breath's potential to give us life, to lighten the upper body, to make the heart buoyant, while also grounding into the earth with legs and four corners of feet, these actions, pure and simple, are all you need.

How easy.

Life after this simple yet profound class didn't seem so complicated anymore. Breath and Earth (and how cool is it that the word earth is written within breath?), all I really need to sustain my life. So now, when life gets away from me, all loud and complicated, I just tap into the earth and make sure I'm still breathing and smile.

Peace.

Thursday, August 05, 2010

To have velocity

When I'm on a bus, I can think
When I walk, I compose
There are moments in my life where all I need
is a little velocity.
Rolling effortlessly down a hill atop a bicycle
Riding in a car as it revs and accelerates, feeling
the wind take away sound and breath
With velocity comes a certain abandon and surrender
Life loses its definition, passing in blur, romantic
My heart jumps into imagination.

Adrift

The broken filament, hard work in silver hangs
loose in the languid gusts of afternoon, snapped
by uncareful fingers through the spider's web, set adrift.
In the morning it had glistened, taut in its symmetry,
peaceful at the end of a night's weaving. Silk poured
from the body. Then, continuity cut, mute, quick, now wavering.