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

catnap

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Since March 4th, I’ve been focusing on my senior kitty who’s been with me forever (close to 19 years), and is now in need of intensive care. So we are taking a catnap together—from everything. From everything that is, except each other and sitting in the garden sunshine with chirping birds and the breeze.

I only know myself as her human.

Something will transpire, sometime and somehow, and some foreign future self unknown to me now, will resume weekly posts. In the meantime, perhaps I will share some old photos or stories of us… or perhaps just the silence.

Thank you for reading and I will be in touch again. 🐾🖤

forty seven

.Reading time 1 minute.
Photo: spiral galaxy NGC 1232, from European Southern Observatory

somewhere, some
forty seven layers down into the center
of earth
and somewhere, another
forty seven layers into the center
of the universe
we walk

hand in hand we walk
beneath the seabed
and along smoldering crevices
these ancient lungs breathing long rivers of fire
in the darkness

we walk on and on
all along these meandering trails
through tall fields of sunlight and pink wildflowers
we step into streams of cold crystal water
smooth around our ankles and cupped hands

and on top of these snow-covered mountain peaks
we walk
where the soaring blue sky is pierced
with song, and with long silver threads of one thousand swans
who like us, fly home

through layer after layer
on and on and into the jet black ink of night, we walk
holding hands here in this deep space brimming with bejeweled skies
we’re swirling and spiraling and dancing
we spin
we, spin and
we spin
our house of love

poems

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

flowering

.Reading time less than 1 minute.


my Love is more
than even the wildest wild rose
an unrestrained, and
captivating beauty—the rarest
flower
tumbling up into the sky, and freer
than the swiftest starling
but still, this singular flower is
rooted
firmly, deeply, ever inextricably
in this soil
in this rich and moist and black
soil,
rooted ever so deeply inside
this deep deep love
flowering

sounding board

.Reading time 1 minute.

Have you felt that too? Not singing, but being sung by the world? Body as sounding board for the swirling elements of air, water, light, and, soft soil? Like mist, song emerging from the slow steps and soft contours of a dance… each and every cell connected to wind and white feathers in flight?
One day, while practicing fue (a kind of traditional Japanese flute) and singing by the Kamo River in Kyoto, I felt that… that sensation of being saturated by the mist and the light. By wind and by love.

The photograph above was taken then, when I felt that. It’s not a particularly striking nor clear picture, but somehow it captured some airborne shimmering light, sparkles, and an egret… Somehow it captures something like being saturated by the light and the mist… something like being a sounding board for the world.

weather

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

we can weather
any change of sky
when we stay
{you & i}
together
🖤

burn

.Reading time less than 1 minute.


can i burn ?
candleflame—like in the dark
when these wounds are much
too much
and the horizon
has all but disappeared
can i burn , please ?
softly
candelflame—like
in the dark

at the end of the day

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

all i ever want
at the end of the day
is to lose myself entirely
in your arms

Our Goddess of the Night

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

do not forget
the moon
is not a faraway and solitary light
no
she is Goddess of the Night
she is the longing that you hear in the howl
of wolves
and she is the swell of ocean waves
climbing higher and higher
ashore
she is the soul of the moonflower
glowing soft silk and white
and
she is the alchemy of the womb
in our bodies
of desire

into her round glowing body
shadowy and soft
she draws the entire inkblack sky
and births anew
light

Our Goddess of the Night

An Invitation

.Reading time 3 minutes.
Let Us Fall In Love Again, by Rumi 

Let us fall in love again
and scatter gold dust all over the world. 
Let us become a new spring
And feel the breeze drift in the heavens’ scent
Let us dress the earth in green, 
And like the sap of a young tree
let the grace from within sustain us. 
Let us carve gems out of our stony hearts 
And let them light our path to Love. 
The glance of Love is crystal clear
And we are blessed by its light.

So here we are, at the beginning of another new year. And how are you? Are you excited about all the new experiences and accomplishments to come, splendid resolutions in tow? Or do you carry into 2023 a burden of unrelinquished loss and things unresolved? Most of us probably walk with some combination of these, seeing opportunities for growth while moving forward feeling less than whole perhaps. We may have lost loved ones or precious dreams, last year. We may have fallen and found ourselves sustaining injury and no longer the same person we used to be. A scary accident may have taken from us the reassurance that tomorrow will indeed be another day. At times life itself can feel riskier than dying. But in the end, we do come to realize that it is all one dance.

I invite you to fall in love, again.
With your loved one after an argument; with family members after estrangement; with your body after injury or illness; with your precious heart after it’s been broken; with the world after it falls apart; with peace after bombs wreak havoc; with the tenderness of remembrance after losing someone dear; with your own beauty after abandonment… Fall in love with your self and with life itself, again and again and again. And when you make this falling-in-love-again a relentless practice, no matter how hard it gets, you will one day wake up and truly realize that you yourself are in essence, pure love.

Yes, in the words of the great mystic poet, Rumi:
Let us fall in love again
and scatter gold dust all over the world.