Finding Home

"39 years of hair", I thought as the husband went through my scalp with the satisfyingly buzzing sound of the clipper with clumps of hair falling all over my body and onto the floor.  "I am letting go of all that." That which has been the quiet witness to everything and anything that has come to pass in my life-- Childhood. Favorite stories. Stories of becoming, unbecoming. Places of beautiful memories. First love. First broken heart. Many firsts. Seconds too and multiples of many more things unspeakable and worthy of praise. Everything is a myth until it is manifested in the body, my teacher Arianne said. We inherit karma, various spiritual traditions have reiterated.  This path to healing has many faces and countless detours. Surrender is a word that I am presently learning to live by. What happens when I acknowledge, be with and honor that which is manifested in the body? What happens when I allow karmic inheritance to pass through without resistance?

Come to the temple of your longing This place of honoring will embrace you Even as it will break your heart This place of grace and forgiving will give you back your anger That for so long you have denied This place of gentle confrontation will compel you to sit with your darkness, meet every ache with tenderness This place of delicate annihilation will unravel your layers revealing your truth no shame or apology, only what is This place of revelation will ground you This is who you are, Right here, right now This place of all there is Of palm trees and fallen leaves In the eternity of wind and waves Soar here, float here, land here Come into this place of need, Of seeking then finding Come into this now open body Into the now expansive mind, into the temple of your now resolute heart. Durga Temple November 22, 2019 I am grateful for all my teachers at Lotus Shores. Every stay has been healing. Every time I heal a bit more. Each time I become

I turn 39 in a month and yet I still remember very clearly the day my classmates and I knew for sure we were going to graduate from high school. Our senior year was nothing short of challenging, rigorous and heartbreaking. But that is a whole other story.   Presently at 38, my youngest son Morgan, who is 11, is bigger than me. Garret now sleeps in his own bed. Although time is of a different form in our life, there are poignant points of contact between the "normal" world and ours. As my boys and I walk around our school for their daily exercise, the comings and goings of our students their age are accompanied by wistful thoughts that I’ve come to embrace. “Garret would have been Grade 8 now. Morgan in 5 th grade.” I find myself going back and forth in time. During these moments of poignancy, questions come one after another. "Where am I in all this?" "Who am I?" "What is my purpose in this life?" My meditation practice certainly

Our teacher leads us into the three cycles representing the full moon and lunar eclipse. It is a dance, one fluid sequence with seemingly no beginning and no end. And in the middle I am brought to a place where I am 8 years old in a ballet studio. It is my first ballet class. My father is there and stays through the entire class. I walk up to him right after and ask him how I was. He says, "Gusto kaayo ka ug naay mutudlo nimo." "You seem to want the teacher to always guide you,"he says in halting Bisaya and English. At the time I understood it to be that I wasn't a born dancer like the others who could very well flex their bodies on their own. But he said it in a way that was gentle, kind and compassionate, the only way he knew how to be with me. Even as I recall the memory now, I am brought to a kind of sensation of falling on a pillow to cushion from gravity, from the otherwise glaring reality. As our teacher leads us further into the sequence, I find mys

Dear Amanda,        In so many ways you have become an important part of my life. From our similar interests in spoken word poetry, to our ukulele playing, to books and stories that change our individual universes to our heart to heart conversations about life. I’ve learned so much from you more than you’ll ever know. I marvel at your wit and insight. I am in awe of your quickness to learn anything you set your sights on. But one thing that I am so honored to have witnessed is the strength of your spirit as you face opposing forces that challenge your belief head on. It is not just your brows that furrow. It is not just the adamant tone of your voice. It is your indignation that compels me to bring out my own against any injustice that may have just occurred. That my dear girl is passion. That my dear Amanda is the one thing that you hold on to when everything around you seems to be falling apart. The strength to fight for your beliefs and often times, your life. This letter

As a child I would look forward to Library hour. Because it meant that I would have another chance to go into a universe of wonder, imagination and exploration where there were no grades to be worried about and no anxieties whether I had to stand in class to participate. In the library, there was only me, my book positioned perfectly on a book stand, the words spread out before me weaving stories of dragons, castles, adventures and mysteries. Of course the 1 hour that was always too short. The love of reading has led me to be creative in so many ways. It certainly has led me to a path of storytelling in written and spoken mediums through the various roles I play in my own life—mother, wife, teacher, guidance counselor, mentor, writer.  But most importantly, I remember all too well how reading had been my place of refuge in the stress of childhood and adolescence that I certainly had no control over. Reading became my saving grace. It is where I first learned compassion, first knew of

Sun in  kitchen Casts shadows and lines Door knob glistens Drawers open Floor tiles glare Biscuit boxes are timid on the shelf Bare feet patter about Hands do what they are supposed to do Pour coffee,  hold mug towards  lips to sip Take out fruit, slice Pour oats on bowl Place wooden scoop  then feed  And in the garden, Birds sing a welcome song-- "Morning has arrived."