Tag: journey

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

edge

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
          perhaps
          it is at the edge 
          of this world
          where
          in one another
          we find home
          and together 
          with the wild birds
          run free

with the water

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
i step
into the water
cold tingling
my toes
ankles
the backsides of my knees

swirling all around
submerged 
with the water
i run
twisting and turning
wind like
through wild summer prairies 
and snow-steeped tundra in winter
i run
falling and flowing
light like
through slot canyons
gorges and ravines
i run

with the water
i run
cascading and streaming
over and down ever onwards out ahead and forwards
i run
i run to the ocean
to the magical ocean of my dreams

skin

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
the river's soft skin   
slows wild rapids of my heart                    
running to the sea

beauty

.Reading time 2 minutes.
if today i die
may beauty be my only
footprints in the sand

Ikigai, raison d’être, purpose, legacy… What is it, ultimately, that propels you forward in life? That keeps your fires burning at night and wakens you from your morning slumber? That enables you to rise again and once again, after each and every stumble or fall? That heals your grieving heart after loss? That brings you to your feet when life has brought you to your knees? That causes you to smile, once again?

Now and then life brings these questions to me, and inevitably, in one way or the other, I always come back to hózhó. Hózhó is the Navajo word for “beauty,” however, it is not limited to notions of aesthetic beauty but encapsulates a profound paradigmatic lens of beauty as composite expression of harmony, peace, balance, and reciprocity. Hózhó is my north star and my raison d’être.

And what is yours?

They say that each of us has come here for a reason, to fulfill some particular longing of the soul. Perhaps it is to experience joy, or love. Perhaps it is to be joy, or love, or beauty. Perhaps it is to learn how to rise again and smile, against all odds. Perhaps it is to acquire a soft heart after hardship. Or to discover light at the end of the tunnel, or to become that light. And it could simply be to discover whatever it actually is—that, that seemingly eternal chimera.

Whatever yours is, may it propel you ever forward on your path. May you walk in beauty. May you journey well. May your dreams be fulfilled.

京のコーヒー

.Reading time 2 minutes.
Kyoto Coffee                                                                            

flowers startle white
in the black night
caffeine-steeped 
 and camouflaged in
e   l e  g a n c  e    
 i awaken 
all  enchanted
the wild blossoms are singing 
light          
into         new   day .

I wrote the original version of this poem about three years ago, after enjoying coffee in an elegant cup at a café in Kyoto. After a long talk with a good friend, the night was late and I cycled back to my small, secluded-away in a quiet and dimly-lit neighborhood near ancient temple grounds in Higashiyama, house. Along the way, I was startled to encounter these white flowers glowing out of the darkness—similar to the white flower on my black coffee cup just a short while earlier. What magic potion had I just consumed, I pondered, in the guise of an elegant Kyoto cup of coffee? Little did I know then, just how truly magical and extraordinary our worlds can be. And I was entirely guileless as to the adventure I’d unknowingly embarked upon. But here I am now, three years later, still traversing these caffeine-steeped nights of enchantment. And what has emerged? Worlds of poetry, beauty, magic, and a precious love—like no other.

So what it the moral of the story?
Surrender to the irrational demands of your heart and of beauty, to this wild world far too vast to be contained within the narrow confines of our minds. And something more magical than you could have ever dreamed of will welcome you, on the other side of night.

A Simple Story

.Reading time 1 minute.

This is a simple story. 

The other day I went for a walk and found a small park with a bench and a very large tree. Sitting there, I took in the surrounding quiet, light, and pleasure of watching a mother and child playing together. And even still, the light weight of an infinite digital universe in my palm took me out of the quiet, the light, and the simple joy. With so much to “do”—I disappeared altogether from the park. 

Then, for some reason, some beckoning from a mysterious somewhere calls and… I looked up. Spinning through the air through the blue through the soft light there, came these two leaves together on one stem. In the park once again. Awake again. My heart beating, once again. I promise to put my phone away and walk over to where the spinning lovers landed. My journey is not solitary. And I collect this little treasure and thank the voices from beyond and my heart is filled again, with quiet with light and with joy. 

two leaves on one stem
suddenly across the sky
spin love into flight

The Ocean

.Reading time 2 minutes.

One of the loveliest things about strolling along the beach is finding seashells. Some of them call out to you, with a little coy glimmer or a slight beckoning and irresistible sigh. “Come, take me home with you, let me adorn your shelves, let me remind you of the sea and its beauty every day” they whisper. And others even more beguiling, “For you, I have made the arduous journey and stranded myself upon this shore! Do not leave here without me.” Alas, what heartless soul does not succumb to the romance of seashells?
Like seashells, poems too find their own ways of surfacing into our meandering minds and our wanderlust—just at the very precise moment we need them. Our wayfaring souls are steered by poetry and seashells alike.

Here is a poem by Khalil Gribran which articulates an inevitable journey to the sea, to the ocean of becoming. And on the eve of 2022, and of all the unknown ahead, I pause on its sandy shore and watch the waves rolling in. Shall I walk back now to the familiar comforts of my faraway motherland, or shall I plunge into this ocean, this unknowable depth with a million and one shades of blue—unabashed, without reserve, naked, and wholeheartedly?

Fear

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

Khalil Gibran

into the light

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
t um blin g 
at the edge of the world 
i fall 
down 
tumbling with the awkward
grace 
of a dancer 
unhinged 
unfettered 
unbridled  
and entirely 
undone 
free 
free now 
and cascading freely
down and
over the edge and at last 
tumbling 
tumbling down 
t um blin g  
down 
and 
and into 
the  l  i   g    h      t