Back in the spiritual saddle again...

To decide to live in an urban jungle ripe with an exploding population and thousands upon thousands of people crammed in concrete high-rise apartment buildings, was not an easy decision to make. I came to South Korea wanting to make money, have a new cultural experience, and take a breather from things. Well, I got a breath of something-- polluted, smoggy, sometimes ultra-foggy air.

But... one can find the living, breathing organism of life in every part of existence. Hence, my spirituality is being re-constructed out of concrete and Samsung products. I am feeling more and more alive here and have just connected with a yoga community of the heart that resonates with my spiritual yearning self.

However, I must admit, that I miss the greenery of the states, and the wild-untouched nature of Lama mountain in New Mexico. Oregon has been beckoning me the most-- with its abundance of forests, mountains and beaches so close by. I worship the wonders of nature and on my way to the grocery store last night, was pulled in my the trees in the park near my house. Hiking is very popular here among the middle-aged Koreans, and so there was a nicely worn hiking trail in the grass, just between the adolescent aged trees along the length of the city-long park. It was renewing just to walk amongst the trees, to hear the cicadas still singing, even at the onset of the crispness of fall. I felt like I was in the woods for a bit, and was oblivious to the cars and the neon lights but a road's width away.

It's amazing how close by everything we need is. It's luscious not to have to go anywhere for anything...but instead let it come to us. And so I learn. Life is not a struggle, but a stream that we are merely meant to float in like a leaf that falls off from the tree-- being taken to the next river bank, where we will soak back into the soil, giving it the fertilizer to grow another seedling and feed this organism called life once more.

I am endlessly in pursuit of love. And romantic love is but a mere speck in the scope of this love that I talk about. Though I don't discount the value of romance, for I am a hopeless romantic in my soul's core. I have been "hooking-up" with a friend and a week or so ago, it got to the point where we both felt it was very relationship like, and we both admitted that was not something we could handle right now, psychologically. Hence, the steam was released, and we went right back to where we had been before, but with a new perception--with clearer eyes.

A few days ago, I had a conversation with my auntie in the states, who was SO full of positive energy and good advice, that it altered my perception in an even more positive way. It's always been difficult for me not to associate intimacy with a relationship of some sort. But my recent conversations have reminded me that I am always in a relationship with my intimacy. That being intimate with another is merely being intimate with your own self. That love is but a heartbeat away-- always. And nothing is to be talked about without first being lived and experienced.

My auntie also reminded me of the importance of positive thinking and affirmation. Words like "I am loved", "I deserve love", "I trust", and "I am safe" are wonderful mantras to say to oneself when thoughts of doubt or fear creep in. AND, it's amazing how my mind and heart shifted in relation to this friend. It put a soft blanket over the doubt and uncertainty surrounding my heart's desire for a permanence or sense of long-term security-- a binding contract of sorts-- in the realms of romantic love.

If I've learned anything this year, being engaged, and after my sister's death, it's that love is a fleeting and fickle thing. Someone can be here physically and then gone the next moment or day, without warning. Now, I don't think the human psyche can eve get used to this in totality, but I do think that it is possible to grow in love with the fleeting nature of human to human relationships. I think that is part of what I am teaching myself as I move from place to place, and now country to country. I remember that the true solace is always within my own heart and mind.

However, there are heart-friends that I will always be connected with, whether they're on this earth plane or have crossed over into the spirit realm.

It is when I remember the simple miracle of what it is to be a leaf floating effortlessly down the stream of existence, that I feel that ever-presence of what one can call spirituality, or mere belief in the heart. It's what Taoism calls the wu wei, or embracing living without effort, simply with love. And so it be.

Women in Love...

D.H. Lawrence got into the mind and heart of women. A true writer is merely an observer of the human spirit.

In our core, we are all mere observers of ourselves, those around us, and all the living and breathing entities that make up this organism called life.

In my continued dedication to the passion and romance that makes up the crux of my existence, I often ponder the matters of the heart-- the yearnings and burnings that go through me moment to moment.

Right now, I am not in a "relationship": meaning, I don't have someone to call "my partner." And honestly, I don't think my psyche could handle that right now. Yet my mind toys with the idea of having a parter-- for life-- on and off again daily. My heart still feels shy with this idea, hence, it doesn't exist in my reality right now. Though the urges are growing deeper, longer and stronger to have a "boyfriend" that will be around for the long-term. I'm going to admit, however, that I've been bi-curious for the past several years of my life. I briefly dated a woman in Oregon, and have kissed a few here and there--and just don't want to be without that possibility in my near future either. Interestingly enough (and not surprising)-- most guys I've dated have found it "hot" that I am interested in hooking up with women, and are hoping I'll let them join in. Ha! I find that rather comical.
When I was in my last relationship, I went out for a night on the town with two of friends: a gay male friend and a bi female friend. We all called ourselves the Queer Club. I asked my girlfriend if it would be cheating on my boyfriend if I kissed another girl. Both of my friends immediately replied "Yes!". But I honestly wasn't sure.

And why am I not sure?

I don't feel comfortable being completely feminine. I'm uncomfortable with the attention I get from males (and females) when I put a lot of effort into how I look--i.e. take my glasses off and put on what Amy Winehouse sings-- my "Fuck-me Pumps".
I like dressing a bit asexual. I like flirting with the idea of being intimate with both of the sexes. Does this mean I am "bi"? Am I coming out in this blog?

I have been too scared to say I'm interested in women and men on Facebook. So I said nothing-- leaving it open to the imagination of others--and leaving the truth to those that know me well.

I think it's healthy to admit to being a bit bisexual. When guy friends totally deny any attraction to the same sex (except for Brad Pitt), I question their honesty. My ex admitted to kissing his best friend once, and that made me respect him more. He was open, honest, and in tune with the natural rhythmn of human sexuality.

We are all attracted to each other on different levels. I don't necessarily see myself settling down with a female partner, though if I discount the idea, I'd be cheating my heart out of it's full capacity to love and be open to its best possible match.

When I was in Portland recently, heading off to the airport to South Korea with my good looking male friend, I was approached by a woman who was sending me the vibes-- and I felt a pang of wonder. I was very attracted to my guy friend, and it felt couplish when we were out and about together, with him helping me carry my luggage and being the last person to see me off in the states. Yet, my brief encounter with this woman made me aware of what I was missing and perhaps denying myself in the realms of love.

And so, I wonder: will it be a he or a she? Is this just intellectual pondering, or is my heart truly yearning to have a female lover?

The final song sung in this choir is the flower that bloomed within me when I was intimate with a woman many years ago. I felt a wholeness-- like I'd finally bloomed in a sexual, spiritual and human way. It was the icing on the cake of my sexual yearnings...that left me wondering.

And I continue to wonder. Wondering is the best seasoning in this life.

On giving Love...

So...the most intimate lover we will ever have is our own self. And my life has been an endless play with this intimacy as the main role--sometimes acting as the protagonist, sometimes the seeming antagonist. Either way, having my "self" as my own lover is the most frustrating aspect of existence.
IS it possible to meet our own needs all of the time? Within the course of a day, I have many desires--and not all of them can be met. And I'm not talking about the instant gratification of a quick-fix. I'm talking about the desire to have intimacy, or a good meal with friends, or a fine wine and some good chocolate.
I began to live the words, carpe diem, 8 years ago, when my sister Rebecca died suddenly from an ecstasy induced grande mal seizure. My sister was 18 months younger than me, and we were best friends during our 1st 5 years of life. Unfortunately, we suffered through sibling rivarly for the next 15 years of our lives. It wasn't until I went to college and moved away that I began to appreciate our relationship and begin to foster a new friendship with her. We were just beginning to dive deeper into the rekindling of our childhood comraderie, when she suddenly died on Halloween, 2000 at the age of 20. This has been a core part of my story that has shaped my own intimate relationship with who I am as a human being. We all have tragedy that has befallen us in our lives. This was my biggest tragedy and my biggest blessing at the same time.

To have a sudden death of a loved one that is younger than you is a shock than can't be imagined... only experienced, in its epic intensity. From this dramatic moment, I was re-born. All of my past suffering seemed trivial in the face of seeing life as a SHORT and PRECIOUS gift to be appreciated NOW! Rebecca's motto before she died was Here and Now. I didn't understand her obsession with these simple words until her body was gone from this earth.

All the poets of all the ages have merely glazed upon the surface of the delicacy of life. This is why I write--and yearn to express mere tidbits of the overwhelming passion I feeling in my heart for all of life. It comes out in little bubbles everywhere I go. But only in bubbles. And perhaps this is where this frustration with being intimate with myself--with learning to make love to not my mind and body, but to the deeper core of who I am--becomes such a frustrating feat-- because I am only experiencing pieces of this deep intimacy.

I wonder what it would be like to DIVE IN and swim in the oceans of my own love?

I have been learning through the living of it. I am enjoying the wine and good chocolate today instead of tomorrow, because I can, and because I have molded a lifestyle for myself where I can afford such treats.

I am engaging in the intimacy with a lover--just experiencing the beauty of it today, without attaching to what will happen tomorrow or next

Intimacy... a deep look into ones own Self.

Tantric yoga is all about looking deeply into ones own mind and heart by peering into the eyes of another. This is relationship: two humans connecting, in love.

Love is not a scary thing. It is a sacred thing.

It is easy to say "I Love You" to family, to those that we connect with on an emotional level: friends and lovers that we are intimate with.
In my life, it has been easy to be In Love with people that are comfortable with love. But what of those that are scared of it? What of those that the words "I love you" have rarely been heard in their lives?
I spent my 1st 21 years being scared of "love". When someone I just met said: "I love you", it scared me. It sent me rolling into a spiral of dissolution. This is because I was uncomfortable with my own heart--with the yearnings, the burnings, the passions, the fires that triggered me deeper into an intimate union with who I really am.

We are a puzzle to our own selves. Rumi, one of my favorite Sufi poets has a poem:

Come out of the circle of time
and into the circle of love.

Upon my 1st read at this zen koan of a poem, my heart understood, though my mind was fearful to explore the depths of this brief whirlwind of a statement.

Life itself is a koan: a puzzle that is not meant to be analyzed, but felt and lived...and understood in that process.

What is it about intimacy that scares me? I have been in relationships where I've only been comfortable sharing parts of true self, because I fear really expressing who I am: a woman in love with all of life. All people intrigue me. It is perhaps the most complicated and crazy that move me most. Those that I meet and want to run away from have opened my heart the most and continue to do so.

I have been meeting people in my sojourn in Korea that have triggered this look deeper into my own heart--people that I instantly feel a love and a fear for at the same time. People that trigger me to look deeper at my own binds and restrictions--and spiral deeper into intimate union with my real self.

I have a friend here who is so open and giving with herself, and yet battles with depression. With her I have only felt love, but in her, I sense a deep yearning to be free of her own limits and restrictions-- to truly let loose and be completely in love with the goddess that she is.

I have a male friend with whom I instantly fell in love with because of his open heart and child-like nature. Through my friendship with him, I have grown more comfortable with my own innocence--embracing the feeling of being re-born each day to the newness of all that is life.

Another beautiful woman recently joined our team of teachers. She is an African American woman from Georgia--the only black woman in our all white group of foreign teachers. She is passionate and comes from a Christian Gospel background. After only our second heart to heart talk, she told me she loved me. These are words I have not been able to mumble to friends with ease right off the bat. But she admitted to me that these words come out of her when she genuinely feels an open-hearted compassion from another human being. And isn't that all intimacy really is: just being completely in love with each moment--each animal, flower, human, meal, or even the thoughts and dreams we have?

As humans, we all tend to have fears or restrictions of some sort of another. And if those restrictions aren't predominant in our lives now, then they were at some point. We have all gone through trauma of some sort or another--and no ones trauma can be measured against anothers. It is all real. It is all hurtful. And all of it has made--or is in the process of making-- our hearts grow bigger.

I love hearing peoples stories, because they are all as different and unique as our own souls. We are all made up of the same atoms, yet they form a different sort of flower in each of us. Some may appear beautiful at first sight, while some have to grow on you, like the taste of a fine wine. It takes time to acquire a taste for love in all its forms and manifestations. Everyone in my life was put there to learn something from--including...most of all...my"self".

I know it may sound narcissistic to some to say "to love your own self is to know the greatest love of all"--but this is the truth. On my journey to understanding and growing in relationship with romantic love, I have found that the greatest romance is the dance between you and your own heart and mind. They are tremendous gifts we are given as human beings. Sacred gifts to be cherished and appreciated with time. The "circle of love" Rumi alludes to is just of this sort. However, "time" is relative to ones own life experience. Everything is always in divine harmony; each atom is dancing in its natural way.

Again, this relationship I've been seeking is not in another. As Rilke answers in his "Letters to a young poet":

Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

And that is the magic that is life. This woman from Georgia made me remember that "I seek, therefore I am." It is in the seeking that I am finding myself more and more.
It's interesting, because I am leading myself more into my own confidence with who I am and what I am here to do. This is what sparks me: connecting deeply with my own heart and mind, sharing it with others, and hearing the sparks and yearnings--the deep burning questions of all of those I connect with, in this form or any other.

I am never alone. But a month ago I felt I was going crazy without a lover-- someone to come home to at night and be physically, emotionally, and mentally intimate with. Now I realize that there will never be any one person that I will connect that deeply with--on all levels. I had the expectation that this one person would fulfill all of my needs for intimacy. But I now realize that this is why I am a human--a social creature intrigued and turned on by connecting intimately with many people within the course of a day. Even if I spend the day alone, I find that I turn on the computer and desire to connect with others via cyberspace or phone. And sometimes that is enough.

When I lived in New Mexico at Lama Foundation, the spiritual community founded by Ram Dass and others in the late 60s, we all had 10 days of hermitage time, where you were supposed to spend 10 days in solitude. Alone. With only yourself. I chose to do a Vipassana during this solitude time. And, while I spent the 10 days in silent meditation with a group of 50 or so others, I was very much alone. We were not aloud to make eye contact and could only talk to the teachers about meditation questions, or to the female manager about any urgent matters or health issues. It was a very difficult experience. It was my first time away from my ex, with whom I was living, working and playing with constantly. It made me realize how little time I'd taken for myself in the few months I'd been with him at Lama. It made me aware of ways I was not giving myself space to explore other intimate connections with family and friends in my life.
I tend to dive deeply into things--immersing myself in all the wonders of whatever I'm doing. My life at Lama, however, which was physically very grueling, living on the mountain, trekking through 3 to 4 feet of snow uphill to get a meal and shower in the winter and working almost 7 days of week during the summer retreat season--reminded me how important it is to listen to my needs and take time for myself.

And my traveling nature, which is one layer of my heart I am coming to fully embrace, has also kept me on the fritz with any long-term committed relationship. Though, I'm realizing that as I come to accept who I am fully--as a traveler, a writer, a yogini and a passionate sojourner of the heart--that the more I embrace this, the more easily all I want will come to fruition.

Another Rilke quote that spoke deeply to me, posted at the bottom of a girlfriend's email was:
"Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure."
And so I've discovered that those people that I've wanted to run away from have helped me the most.

So... this weeks question is:
WHO are you most afraid of, and what makes you want to run from them? (It could be an aspect of yourself).

May you continue to peel and savor the taste of each layer of your own self.

Namaste,
sarah <3