Author: Michiru Adrienne

Who are you?

.Reading time 3 minutes.
Though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are.  
—Rumi

Who are you? Not what is your name, job title, or societal roles… which are but outer expressions of the self. But who are you, actually? Surely there is an inner self with which you came into this world before family and culture could mold you; and with which you will eventually depart this world, shed of all its trappings. Who is this self?

Another way to contemplate the same question might be to ask, “What brings you joy?” Naturally, we will generally reply with references to people in our lives, our partners or children, for example. Or our favorite activities and things or accomplishments. It is true that dancing and chocolate cake bring me joy, as well as roses, poetry, and my loved ones. But why? How is it that for me joy arises while dancing but not while running, while eating chocolate but not licorice? The self that derives joy from dancing but not from running, is indeed the very same self. So underneath the particularities of the whats is something more fundamental—joy itself. 

Or perhaps we might be startled back to the truth of who we are by considering our raison d’être. Why are you here? For what reason do you exist? Surely joy is intimately intertwined with one’s own raison d’être. But like joy, it is not exactly the particular whats that is of most significance, not necessarily the raison but the d’être that is more fundamental. 

Être. Just being. What arises when you sit quietly, listening to your heartbeat? What do you feel? In the characteristic excitement and chaos of life, we may feel an entire spectrum of emotions… sadness, delight, fear, worry, happiness, melancholy, anger, and so on. But if we keep listening, keep paying attention and being present, we will eventually discern something fundamental underneath it all.
When all the clouds in the sky have passed by, what remains? Light.
When the monsters of fear step out of the shadows and into the light, what is revealed? Love. 

Can it be that the dance of our likes and dislikes, our preferences and particularities, our biases themselves, are the garden in which love grows to discover itself? The garden in which the fundamental joy of being is the light which startles us back to nothing other than the truth of who we are? To nothing other than Love its self. 

Walk In Beauty

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Many years ago I was on a road trip through the American southwest and in a bookstore somewhere, stumbled across a small square book titled: Navajo, Walking in Beauty. It was then that I was first introduced to the Navajo word hózhó. Roughly translated into English as “beauty”, hózhó encompasses the concepts of harmony, balance, and reciprocal relations. Instantly, I fell in love. I was deeply moved by the possibility that beauty is an expression of harmony and profound spiritual realization—a perception that understands beauty to be both embodied aesthetic expression, as well as ineffable and transcendent sensibility.

Hózhó is realized by aligning one’s self with the forces of nature. It is a dynamic and ongoing process of harmonizing the self with the world and the entirety of the universe and existence. To “walk in beauty” is in essence, to live a life of harmony and peace.  

Following is the concluding refrain from a Navajo ceremonial song:

Beauty before me, I walk with.
Beauty behind me, I walk with.
Beauty above me, I walk with.
Beauty below me, I walk with.
Beauty all around me, I walk with.
In old age, the beautiful trail, I walk with.
It is I, I walk with.

Not only is one blessed to walk in a world of beauty, but in the end one becomes beauty itself. Hózhó. It is with this understanding of beauty by which I am most inspired to express myself in the world. Through my writing, photography, dance and poetry, I hope to invoke this world of hózhó. Whether on this website and blog, my social media pages or publications, I hope you will find inspiration and hózhó for your own journey through life. May you walk in beauty.

if today i die
may beauty be my only 
footprints in the sand

Dance & Art

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Dance, like sunlight, is a fundamental art. Who has never danced? The world of nature and the worlds of art coexist to create expressive ecologies in which the stories of our human lives play out on the world stage. Nature, of which we are a part, is intelligent design—an ever unfolding artistic expression. When we recognize nature itself as artist, it may become easier to access and express our own inherent creative life force and expression. 

So go ahead and throw open wide, the windows of your heart and soul—dance with the sun and stars, sing with the wind and waves.

舞 dance

after passing so many moons
my feet
reunited with tabi and tatami
delight, in mosslike spring of steps
while the folds of my kimono
breathe, together with this dancing body
and obi’s embrace
yields floating spaces
in the light orbits of wrists
elbows and hip creases,
and knees lowering to the floor

i raise my mai-ohgi skywards
leaving trails of sparkles twinkling
in this room full of twilight
i am dancing my love
into prayer
my heart into song
my soul
into a poem
for this weary world,
and for my beloved
who, among the stars dances 
with me

*tabi: a kind of Japanese sock with a split between the big toes and other toes
*tatami: traditional Japanese flooring made of straw
*kimono: traditional Japanese clothing
*obi: the belt-like sash worn to secure kimono in place
*mai-ohgi: dance fan (a close-up is pictured in the photo above)

Voice

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Everything in nature expresses itself naturally. Water flows to the sea, winds wail through crevices in the canyon, flowers unfurl to the sun, and rocks sing into the night under a canopy of stars. Humans, in our at times unnatural self-consciousness, often have a conflicted relationship with self-expression, with the simple and natural expression of being. With our own voice.

Some sectors of society would silence the voice of others, as seen in recent arrests of Myanmar celebrities speaking out against the military coup. Freedom of expression is a hotly contested concept in democracies and dictatorships alike. Liberation itself is often linked to the capacity to voice one’s opinions, to author one’s own stories, to represent one’s own realities through self-expression. 

Taboos too, societal conventions and norms, often suppress an otherwise free-flowing form of selfhood. Boys should not cry and girls should not dictate. For example. But who would tell the moon not to wax and wane, the sun not to shine?  
How do you flow and what is the nature of your voice? What is the consequence of inhibition? And of freedom?

Many years ago I studied Aikido, a form of Japanese martial arts developed in the 20th century by Ueshiba Morihei. One of the exercises I practiced was “kiai”, which is to shout when delivering a strike. For a girl turned woman who had been taught to never “raise her voice”, learning how to shout was extremely difficult. It felt as though I’d been told to sing underwater without drowning, or to open a sealed iron vault without touching it. Psychosomatically, I could not yell. But eventually, my small whimper of a kiai turned into a proper, loud, strongly voiced shout. I would like all women to preserve the raw, naked, life-affirming and powerful cry they came into the world with. Voicelessness, at times, is deadly. 

This is my voice. Writing and poetry. A dance, and survival. Like fire, I want my body to burn bright. To shine in the darkness. 

Grace

.Reading time 2 minutes.
released by the wind
sakura petals flutter
alive in a dance

Grace derives its irresistible gravity from surrender. Just as water acquiesces to the form of its container and flows around boulders and bends on its way home to the sea, surrender to the pull of gravity facilitates movement and harmonizes effort. Gravity is not merely a downwards weight; it is dynamic attraction in any direction. Birds in flight, and the clouds too, have their own gravity. Sakura blossoms unfurl to the gravity of spring, opening into floating clouds of delicate pink light. And the gravity of sakura themselves, draws out an entire nation of people into festivity.

In Japan, national news forecasts the blossoming of sakura as it generally starts in the southwestern parts of Japan and spreads gradually across the country to northeastern regions. Suddenly there are flocks of people out in the parks and along the river banks, toting massive cameras, obento, beer, blankets, sometimes a portable karaoke set, and more beer. Even unseasonably cold weather and rain will not deter the Japanese from indulging in sakura beauty. We are a diehard hanami people. 

Children “fish” for floating sakura petals in the river, lovers sit in their pink bubbles of oblivion, co-workers drink and party together sharing the otherwise unsharable, families lunch and laugh while university students karaoke late into the night, and old couples stroll slowly by… And the poet? She becomes sakura. Surrendered to drunken beauty she dances, swirling in the midst of all the wind and water and petals, light and pink. Alive. 

Grace too, has its own gravity – like sakura in spring.