Tag: philosophy

nothing is known

.Reading time 5 minutes.

nothing is known
not the who or why or how
just someone
with their long story
asleep on the edge of a concrete driveway and burrowed beneath a blanket
shopping bag for pillow

nothing’s known
but in my heart, i ache,
and so i ask:

um, hi, are you ok? excuse me… sorry to bother you but…
it’s a bit dangerous here,
i say
i pause, nervously, but persistently
and in the dim light a hand uncovers two eyes peering directly into mine

uh, you know cars coming out of the parking garage might not see you here and they might accidentally hit you or run over your foot,
i sputter awkwardly
glancing at the large foot i now see sticking out from under the blanket
Can you move?
There’s another spot just over there,
i urge,
and i think it’d be safer…

nothing is known,
but i hear an elegant voice emerge from the shadow:
Maybe in a few minutes, thanks, but I’m kind of tired right now…
says he,
somehow in the tone of an amused smile.
But persistently I press on:
What if tomorrow i were to hear in the news something about a man who was run over in the driveway—and i could have prevented it—so how would i feel then?
a pause passes
“I won’t make the news,” he forecasts wryly.

um… a little more determined this time…
is there something i can help you with, something you need?
i implore.
Well, pause, I do accept cash donations.
With the exception of an iPhone16 i am empty handed on this ten minute work-break walk around the block.
I’m sorry, i say awkwardly and self-consciously, I don’t have anything right now…
“I was just joking,” came his swift reply, seemingly more for my sake than for his.

I let him know that we have some extra dinners and that i’ll bring him one and tell him that i’ll be back in a few minutes and i ask him to wait and to be careful…
and then i return with a boxed take-out dinner in a plastic bag, napkins and sauces, and chopsticks included.
What if he doesn’t eat with chopsticks, i wonder.
i mean
nowadays most Americans (assuming he’s American; his voice has slight British undercurrents, at least to my ears) know how to eat with chopsticks and we are in LA after all.

Placing the bag down carefully near him, still burrowed under the blanket, i pause.
um, here you go… i’m sorry there’s chopsticks… we have forks too…
He peers at me.
The shadows are steep and we cannot see one another well.
“Chopsticks are ok,” he says, patiently.

Look, there’s a place just over there that’s off the street and away from cars… I’ll help you carry your things…
i try again
but he doesn’t want to move
in a few minutes, a little later, he promises

But this time he extends his hand to me,
asking,
“What’s you name?”
I hold his hand.
Mi-chi-ru, my name is Michiru (uncommon, even in Japan).
Michiru, he says carefully, and a few times
still holding my hand.

nothing is known
not the who or why or how
but in my heart i feel the connection
and his desire to remember
my name…

Um, pause, I mean…
and this time i feel that it is him who is a little nervous…
Are you single or something? he asks. I mean, I look good in a suit and tie…

Peering into his eyes, i see a beautiful soul.
and i say:
The clothes don’t matter… i can see that you’re a handsome man…

But then i mumble something about how i’m not looking for a relationship and about having to get back to work but and that i’m here every day and i’ll keep my eyes out and, and… will he promise me to take care and to be safe and to move to that safer spot over there?

I promise, he says.
And we let go of one another’s hands.

Nothing is known. Not the who or why or how. Just him, just me, and just us.
Souls.
With a long story.

My heart, aches.





Children of Shimá

.Reading time 1 minute.

Now, more than ever.

Ever since I was little, I craved the guidance, mentorship, and leadership of women—of wise, old and beautiful women. As a little girl, I loved my grandmother’s hands. She would complain to me about her “ugly old-age spots,” but her wrinkled and spotted hands were to me, beautiful. They held mine warmly, with love and kindness. They gave me the world’s best chocolate-chip cookies, miniature shoes her mother had collected, and hugs.

And now, more than ever, I crave the kindness, wisdom, love and leadership—of women. I crave a world in which old women, with their soft, worn, and strong bodies of age are acknowledged for their beauty and for their power. I crave a world where grandmothers are government.

I am grateful to my mother, my grandmothers, and their mothers… to the many wise women teachers I’ve had… and to shimá (“my mother” in Navajo, implying both a personal and collective mother). The tremendous hardships they faced in life did not diminish their love and capacity to give, but deepened it. May I walk bravely in their footsteps…

now, more than ever.

I VOTE.

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

nothing is taken for granted
they say not tomorrow and not one more day in this life
but i say today
right now at this very moment and this time
nothing can be taken for granted
not even my own body
nor my voice
to speak, to sing, to incant, to whisper or shout, to scream in the dark
my own voice
to mutter and to murmur
to cast beautiful spells, and shadows in the twilight, and poetry
and to cast my vote
my one vote
irreplaceable
right now
invaluable
and
never taken for granted.

contentment

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

micropoetry for a rainy day

    sometimes
we just gotta b r e a t h e
      and be
  okay
        with   just being.

Yours truly,
Los Angeles

beautiful

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

this body
in the soft folds of kimono
also creases
gently
without resistance
to earth and to drifting stars
this body breathing, obi-bound, is a delicate dance
like butterflies in the wind
like waves of the ocean
rising and falling
weaving together all the days and all the nights into one endless strand
step after step
fold after fold
crease after crease
this body is singing
and dreaming
is birthing
anew
worlds of beautiful

new year aspirations

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

i want to fly with wings
like the angels
full of light and love and peace
beautiful
and in the divine wind, dance
like the starlings
precise, purposeful, impeccably wild and free
in spite of all these tears
the hardship and the heartache
in spite of our wars and endless trauma, catastrophe, disaster and destruction
i want to fall
again and again
like the drunken fools
madly in love with this world

in light of the shadows

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

while the world carries on
with its wars
waging in the hearts and minds of legions
and for eons
without, seemingly, an end
while the sun toils on and the moon weeps
for all our innocents buried underneath the trees
i want to stay here softly
in the darkness and in the silent night
i want still
in light of the shadows
this dance

sunrise

.Reading time 2 minutes.

I came to realize that my mother is the sunrise. That it was she who created me, and that it was her love that brought me into this world. A fact so simple and so obvious that I had failed to notice it before. Like the air we breathe needs no explanation; we simply breathe. Suddenly, I came to know Gaia. Changing Woman and the beauty of Kinaaldá* came running home, light-footed and swift, to me. The sacred fire of Amaterasu danced inside of me. Women are creators. We are life.
In the beginning, my mother created me.

Each day my mother was in the hospital, I took a photo of the sunrise and sent it to her. It was only after the third or forth day that I realized what I was doing and decided to continue until she was strong enough to come home. And she did come home, finally… after being on the brink of ICU, after IVs and antibiotics, after nasal cannula and swollen legs and a pain which she described as the devil dancing in her body. After she heard a woman’s voice saying that she had come to get her…
But my mother is home now and recovering. And she is rising with the sun each day.

On the first morning my mother was back home from the hospital, I took a photo of the sunrise and sent it SMS to her and then went downstairs and walked into the kitchen. There she was, looking out the window into the garden and enjoying the same sunrise. I gave thanks for her life, and for mine together with hers.
My mother is the sunrise.

*Kinaaldá is a coming of age ceremony in Navajo culture in which girls come to embody the life-giving and healing qualities of Changing Woman (Asdzáá Nádłeehé); they become Changing Woman herself.

imagine

.Reading time 2 minutes.

angels and demons
dance together in my dreams
no heaven no hell

I wrote the above haiku and reflection below about two and a half years ago. With the recent outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, I thought it apropos to share this again. May a world of peace for everyone dawn—pink and soft light over the horizon of darkness.

From Aristotle to Einstein, philosophers, artists and poets over the ages have spoken about the power of imagination. In some regards, it is lamentable that we often perceive knowledge as an accumulation of so-called objective “facts”, and imagination as a kind of unreal world of dreams. But the creation of anything and everything always starts with the imagination. So what then actually, is imagination? Is it not the source of everything?

Since its creation in 1971 by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the famous song “Imagine” has been invoked worldwide in a shared desire for humanity to transcend differences and to live “life in peace”. You may say that imagining world peace has not created it; however, in the act of imagination, in stating and singing and sharing the dream, are we not creating the real experience of peace within our own hearts and together with others? When we imagine peace, we experience it. Likewise, when we imagine violence, we experience it. What we imagine, we experience. What we imagine, we become.

We are all dreamers—it is our birthright and our true nature. So why not dance and dream together, for a world of peace? We are our dreams. May they be light.

zephyr

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Leaning into the wind with my bodyweight of eleven years, I was determined to keep moving forward, one small step at a time. The faraway horizon beckoned like the moon to the sea… while the wind, the relentless wind streamed into this wide and wild valley between snow-covered mountain tops. Steeped in the Himalayas somewhere, I knew, I just knew that if I persisted, that if I listened long and hard enough, I would be able to understand the elusive language of the wind. Something of its power and age-old wisdom would be revealed to my pounding heart and my little soul. Tibet was seemingly just over there, close enough to touch. I would keep walking the path forward, I would keep listening, and someday, surely someday, I would understand wind.

Twenty years later, a fire dance ceremony, Navajo Nation:
We are huddled in the black night, with blankets wrapped snugly around shoulders for warmth. Wind blows cold across my face, then warm smoke and sparks from the burning logs. I have lost track of time as i watch the dancers with as much alertness as possible in the long night, trying to remember patterns, movements, dancers and dresses. Standing next to me is one of the young Diné dancers i have met and talked to not long ago. He is kind, checking to see if i am warm enough. Then he asks if i have noticed the wind. Yes, i reply i have felt that it is cold. But, he inquires, have i noticed how it travels? How it has come from the east, then from the south, west, and finally north? How it has traveled through the long night of dancing? My heart shifts as he so suddenly and so simply shares with me poetry of which i had been illiterate just moments before. And the poetry is in his telling as much as in the traveling of wind. It is softness, a certain warm glow of speaking that belies true love for the poetry of wind. Kinship, and a softness of the heart.

Wind, I would come to realize, is consciousness—the one mind of mother earth in constant motion. Wind connects us all. If we still and settle into our hearts, patiently, we will understand that wind is a beautiful mind moving through us. Our very breath. Life force. Love. And dance, I would come to realize, animates the wind. Like trees, we breathe and are being breathed.

So when all else fails, dance. At the edge of the world and after apocalypse, dance.

zephyr

you are the soft light of pink day
and, you are the song of the sky
in which i, although splintered
still fly
and, still dance
in all my midnight dreams, scattered and sweet

A Proclamation on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, 2023