I am a healer

I want to be able to call myself a healer. To say "I am a healer" and to know that my heart's work is as a facilitator of the release of pain. I am so thankful that I am finally on that path. I am also inspired with the knowledge that my journey is just beginning and that it need not ever end. In fact, perhaps my journey isn't just beginning and all of my life's experiences have been set up to bring me to where I am now. I don't know if I would be here without the "wounds" of my past. And I am certain I owe much to my deep spiritual experiences - beginning at an early age, shaken up during adolescence, abandoned while reconciling my desires, and found again from a rebirth of sorts.

I went to a reggae concert this weekend and I want to use one of their lyrics as a metaphor for how I feel deep inside: "There's a fire in my soul." Indeed, there is a fire there and I just want to keep adding wood to the fire so it can grow and remain nurtured. I also went to another show and heard another lyric that stuck with me. I can't remember the words exactly, but basically it was about "maybe the point to life is there is no point." Standing on it's own, this lyric sounds kind of harsh, but within the context of the song it resonated with me the idea that as human beings we are constantly trying to make sense of and understand the meaning of life. And maybe the meaning of life is much more simple than all of the religious philosophies hypotheses? We are all here to touch others and to be touched ourselves. So whatever the point to life is, let me live each moment in gratitude of the beauty of this world, the connecting of souls, the wonder of imperfection, the freedom to be me and to know that in simply being me I can and have made a difference in other's lives.

So there, I am already a healer in my own way. You are too, you just have to believe it. God, it just sounds so good.

The Gift of Life

"The Gift of Life" - Alan Jones (An episcopal priest speaks of his daily practice in the art of "Contemplative Dying)

In my tradition we try to practice dying every day so that we ay be fully alive. What I understand of my prayer life is to place myself on the threshold of death, to participate in my dying, so that I may live each day and each moment as a gift. What I cultivate is a grateful heart; each moment then becomes a new thing. My gratitude comes from the sheer gift of life itself.

Who you are cannot be contained in what is happening to you just now. You are part of a love story. You are desired and longed for. There are thousands of witnesses before you who would claim that you are held in the arms of love. And I'd like to leave you with the prayer that one of the Franciscans left with me -

O my God, you are here. O my God, I am here. O my God, we are here. And always, always, always you love us. Always, always you love us.

May the angels of God watch over you; may Mary and all the Saints pray for you, and all those whose lives you touch, this moment and forevermore. Amen

Ritual

Today I began a new ritual, at least I am hoping and praying that I will have the strength and self discipline to continue this practice every day so that I can one day call it a true ritual. The experience I had was profound.

A few years ago I worked as a hospice volunteer coordinator and I was given a two disk c.d. set called "Graceful Passages." The first c.d. has a bunch of soothing messages from various cultural traditions about death and dying set to beautiful, peaceful music. The second c.d. is just the music without the words on the first c.d. I lost track of this c.d. for a few years and then a couple of months ago I went home to my parent's house and when I was searching through my things, I happened upon it and brought it back to the city with me. I first listened to it again when I was suffering from a few days of insomnia and thought I would give the calming nature of the c.d. a try in my varied attempts at falling asleep. I wasn't entirely successful, but thank God that I listened to it that day because the messages touched my soul and I have been thinking for awhile of using the c.d.s in a daily practice of some sort.

Today, I took the idea out of my head and put it into practice. I just created a mini-altar in my bedroom that consists of two sculptures I bought from a medicine woman in Bolivia (one represents Pacha Mama and the other Pacha Papa -- mother earth and father earth), a wood sculpture of a Yogi, and a bunch of incense that I brought back with me from Vietnam. I lit a stick of incense which conveniently sits inside the Pacha Mama figure, turned on the music portion of the Graceful Passages c.d., got out a comfy pillow, knelt down on my pillow and began to pray. I started off thanking God and acknowledging the energy of the universe and of Pacha Mama and asked to be filled with the energy from both the heavens and the earth. The rest of what I said is fairly inconsequential, but once I let go of the words and simply sat with my thoughts and the smell of the incense wafting in the air, my thoughts turned towards the love and beauty that I have received from my family in Ecuador. These people are not my family through birth and while we don't communicate fluently in each other's languages, the love I felt from them when I was there filled my body and came pouring out of me as my eyes filled with tears which I let roll down my face one by one. I simply sat and felt filled with love and gratitude.

After I got up from the pillow, I played one of the messages from the c.d. I want to share that message here because I think it is incredibly beautiful. Actually, I changed my mind. I think I will give the message it's own post cause it is deserving of standing alone.

You're the inspiration

I had dinner this weekend with my friend from Mexico. He has lived here over ten years and has worked in restaurant kitchens all over the city; usually clocking around 80 hours of work a week. Most of his wages are sent home to care for his two children that he has not been able to see since he came to this country. Every time I hang out with him, I can't help but feel grateful for all of the things that I take for granted. He never feels sorry for himself, his view is that he is doing his duty for his family and he is happy to have money to send to his kids so that they can go to school. I just wanted to write this post as a tribute to him as an inspiration in my life.

His attitude of finding the positive in every situation was never better illustrated for me than one day at my old job when the front of house workers were all complaining about how we weren't being paid on time. He told me, "I worked at a restaurant before and I went to work and it was closed and I never got paid $1500 that they owed me." I thought that was ridiculous, "Are you kidding me?" I exclaimed. His response I will never forget, "Yea, but I got to work with a really great chef and learn a lot. So basically it was like I paid $1500 for school which is pretty cheap."

Bus wars

Why do people on public buses refuse to move to the back of the bus when they are standing up? Clearly, it must occur in some part of their self-centered brains that anyone else who gets on the bus is also going to have to stand up. And simple laws of science and space (think one of those school math problems: if a farmer has a plot of land that is 4 ft. by 4 ft. and he wants to plant x number of trees....) dictate that there will not be enough room on this front portion of the bus for all of the future passengers. With this common knowledge, it seems simply human courtesy to move as far back in the bus as you can to allow room for anyone else who gets on. Yet, without fail when I get on a full bus, I have to maneuver through all the people in the front to find a space to stand. This game of pinball gets irritating. Sometimes I just want to yell out, "Why won't you people move to the back! Don't you know that more and more people are going to get on here? Where do you think they are going to stand you idiots?" Or even worse, when there are so many people standing in the front that you try to get on the bus and you can barely fit. You have to squeeze your body against all the other passengers just to stay behind the yellow line. And you can see as you look through the clustered mass of people that there is a large empty space at the back of the bus. Whenever I see this, I long to be there, but sometimes the other passengers have kept me from reaching this oasis of space. It's not like there isn't a door in the back of the bus as well. I just don't get it and I would like someone to tell me why. Why are we living in such a self-centered society that we prefer to cause others difficulty rather than give up our so-called "prime real estate?"

Pet talk

My question of the day is: "How can some people treat their pets so great and themselves like shit?"

I was hanging out with my sister today who is going through some incredibly hard times right now, probably the most difficult times in her life. She recently rescued a dog from the Oakland ASPCA and has given the dog so much love and care that it touches my heart to see their connection. Right now, she is playing an extreme mother role for the dog. Since the dog essentially has post traumatic stress disorder from living in the shelter and having God only knows what kind of life before hand, she presents her trauma in the form of skittishness and fear. Whenever her dog becomes scared, she is quick to step right in and pet her to calm her down and say something like, "Good girl. It's okay. It's okay. You are such a good girl."

Not only does she comfort her dog, she praises and rewards her. I can't tell you how many times I heard her say, "Oh you are so cute. Aren't you just the cutest dog in the entire world. It should be illegal how cute you are." And whenever she does something good, she rewards her with a little doggie treat.

I wish with all of my heart that she could find a way to be that healer and provider of love and security for herself. She has gone through her own trauma, but has yet to talk to herself in the same manner that she does with her dog.

What if we all walked through life each day talking to ourselves like we do our pets? I think that there just might be some more people in this world who find a way to love themselves. I tell my roommate's cat constantly, "Oh, I love you so much kittle bittle. You are such a beautiful and wonderful sweetheart." I'd like to end my night saying the same thing to myself: "I love you so much and you are a beautiful and wonderful sweetheart." There, now that just feels good.

Connection

The concept of connection and community has been on my mind a great deal lately. Growing up a military brat and moving every three years, I was constantly having to create and recreate a community of friends for myself. This transitory way of life led me to develop invisible walls and barriers between myself and groups of people. I've always been a very social person, but at the same time maintained that I had a need for independence. I lived life with a sort of "I don't need anyone else" attitude. I also grew up in a family where intense fighting was the norm and emotional support virtually nonexistent, somewhat abusive one could say. In a space where words were more often hurtful than mindful and crying always meant that something was wrong. My way of coping when I was growing up was to maintain a somewhat "invisible" status, again, harking back to my claim that all I really need I can give myself.

Recently, I have discovered the beauty and importance of being in community. I no longer desire to withhold my feelings from others, including myself. I also recognize my need for connection. I am so grateful that I am allowing these desires to exist.

Tonight, I went to a bipolar support group. Lately, my moods have been swinging all over the place and I thought it would be nice to talk to some others. I really want to write more about this, but I need to go to bed. So, I just want to say that I am proud of myself for facing a fear. I also want to note that people are amazing and wonderful beings and that as tough has my illness has been in my life, I am actually grateful for it for allowing me to really have compassion and empathy for a kind of struggle with one's own mind that is impossible for many people to understand.

End of a chapter

Pin drop
flip flop
inside the brain
play the game
relief like a white rabbit hare
rescued from a hunters gun
soldier on rabbit
turtle tails and little hairs
they will grow
like a flower with sun and water
love with language
growth even stronger
out of danger
night sky, shooting star, wishes cast
returned in a whisper
a gesture of compassion
learning multiple lessons
life is all in succession
spoke of the moment
gratitude for the reminder
i might long for other worlds and dreams
but today is today and tomorrow a world away

Swirled

People are the same
no matter race, color, or creed
we may have different traditions
And views about this world
Wish we all could live in harmony
and see the beauty wherever it may be
But unfortunately lack of understanding
leads to desire to dominate and subjugate
a big fat swirled mystery is life
like a swirled ice cream cone
only sometimes we fit together
and sometimes we choose solely vanilla or chocolate
I like my cone in a rainbow of colors
swirled together through peace and love

Effortless

It feels like forever since I last got to write anything. All of the pens that I brought with me on the trip have run out of ink and when I was at the market today and tried to buy just two pens instead of the entire canister, the women shooed me away and mumbled something to themselves. Probably along the lines of, "Crazy foreigner. What good does selling 2 pens do us?" Who knows what they said, though whatever it was I'm hoping it sounded ruder than it really was. To be honest, they kind of scared me with their intense reaction. That aside, I haven't been able to write in about four days or so and I have got to find myself a pen tomorrow. On the other hand, it feels good to get back on my blog and post a little something about what I've been experiencing.

I finished reading "The Celestine Prophecy" a few days ago and one of the nine spiritual insights that the main character of the book is attempting to discover has to do with examining the coincidences that occur in your life and also of equal importance, to examine why certain people come into your lives at certain times. The premise is to keep your mind open to the knowledge or insights that they have to offer you.

My first day in Hanoi, I was eatting breakfast at a cafe when this girl who was by herself walked by. As she passed, she happened to glance in my direction and we exchanged a smile. I honestly had an intuition that I was going to have another encounter with her at some point. About 5 minutes later, she came back, stopped in front of the menu stand and read it for a brief moment before walking into the cafe. Again, as she walked passed me we exchanged a smile and then she came back and almost simultaneously she asked if she could join me and I motioned for her to come sit down. She happened to be from Austria and unfortunately I know that the language barrier kept us from experiencing each other's full personalities, but we spent the day together going to some parts of Hanoi away from the tourist district. It was good hanging out with her, but at the end of the day, I definitely felt a need to get away and be on my own again. I didn't really think about her much until today when I went out to look for a tour of Halong Bay. Trying to find a trip around here is like taking a huge gamble. Half the time you don't really know if you will be getting what the tour agency advertises. When I met with her she told me about this agency called Ocean Tours and I happened to walk by them today when I was thinking about Halong Bay. I stopped in and they were really great. I think this bit of information was what I needed to learn from Karen.

Yesterday, I took a day trip out to the Perfume Pagoda. It's this super sacred Buddhist place where tons of Vietnamese go to this temple that is located inside a cave and they ask for an abundant year. On the trip there was an American couple and while we were walking back to the boat to take us back (you have to take a one hour boat ride on the river to get there) I ended up talking to Courtney about her bargaining strategies. They live in Thailand so I figured that they would have a lot of experience with these things. Bargaining is one of those skills that was simply lost on me. For the most part, I might as well have a sign on my head that says, "I am a sucker and will give up really easily." In fact, the other day, I went to buy a pork bun and the women told me it was 1000 dong more than I had paid the day before, but I was too lazy to say anything. Well, today, I actually had fun bargaining and think I was fairly successful. The original price quote I got was 150,000 and I ended up paying 60,000. Thanks Courtney for the information.

Lastly, a man whose identity is still unknown to me gave me one of the greatest insights so far. I was riding a motorbike taxi back from the museum and we pulled up to a stop light. The man next to us was wearing a sweatshirt that said, "Buffalo Tours. Inspirational Travel" on the back. I was quite familiar with Buffalo Tours as I had actually had quite a bit of interest in potentially taking one of their trips which encompassed Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam and was unique in the fact that their were these really cool volunteer projects in each place. The whole philosophy of the organization is to give back when traveling and it was started by a Vietnamese guy, so it is all local and all the profits and salaries benefit the people who live here. I hadn't thought about looking them up once I got here, but I had thought many times over the course of this trip that I wished there was something I could do to make a difference. Anyhow, I thought that if I had time today I would try to find out where their office was and go talk to them. But I got to wandering all over the old quarter and other parts of Hanoi and pretty much forgot about it when I turned down one street on my way to find some old house and there was the Buffalo Tours office. I walked in, told them I was interested in trying to find an organization in Hanoi that I could perhaps volunteer at for a day or to and then make a monetary donation. The women set me up with a place called Morning Star Center which is a school for children with intellectual disabilities. They rely solely on private funding and they often help students integrate into regular schools and teach independant living skills. I'm staying in Hanoi now rather than try to see the Northwest part of the country, which is supposed to be beautiful, but I know that I am right where I want to be.

Losing my patience

I just wrote this super long posting and then it got deleted from the computer. I guess it was only meant for myself and not to be read by anyone else. I'll just say that I made it through the motorcycle journey and hopefully tomorrow I can write more.

Butterfly kisses

I have somehow come to find myself on a six day motorcycle journey through the Central Highlands of Vietnam, from Nha Trang to Hoi An to be specific. Never in my wildest dreams would have I imagined this experience. Prior to coming here, I had only ever had two fairly short motorcycle rides courtesy of Michele. This trip just sort of found me. I was walking to the beach in Nha Trang with the plan of hanging out there in the morning, returning to my hotel before noon to shower and pack my things, check out of my hotel, and take the night bus around 7 pm to Hoi An.

On my way to the beach, I was stopped by Mr. Hiep and offered a ride within the town. I quickly turned him down because I was only going a short way and didn't want to even look the slightest bit interested for fear of being hassled. He asked me where I was from and when I answered, he pulled his bike up alongside mine and asked if I had ever heard of the Easy Riders. I told him no, although I briefly recalled my friend Primavera mentioning something of the sort and when I was looking up some stuff online while still in the U.S. I had bookmarked a page with some information about how you can hire motorcycle riders to take you out into the country and act as your guide. He pulled out his book of previous customers rave reviews and we were off to a cafe so that he could show me his pictures and talk to me about the trip.

Going with my letting experiences come to me mentality, it sounded like a cool idea, I had been wanting to get out to the parts of Vietnam where having transportation is necessary, and I previously heard of these bike riders, so I signed up for the trip. I signed up for the trip knowing that it was a bit longer than I wanted to spend, but the shorter trips go South and I needed to go North, so I thought why stress about it and simply look at it as an adventure.

Today is the end of the third day and I am really starting to enjoy myself. The first two days, for some reason, I was focusing more on the negative aspects of the trip rather than looking deeper and trying to find the beauty. For one thing, while there has been plenty of beautiful scenary, I wouldn't say that anything has been over the top spectacular. I couldn't help comparing the beauty to other places I had been or to some previously conceived belief about what the scenery would look like on this trip. Additionally, Mr. Hiep, nice as can be, simply does not understand English very well. I would say that he speaks better than he can understand, but I think that this has come over years of saying pretty much the same things to all the tourists. At first, this was quite challenging for me because I wanted to engage him and not to simply listen to him tell me the same thing time after time; I really struggled to maintain my personality because he could not understand when I was trying to joke around and be silly.

On the ride today, as we drove through a series of villages, all of a sudden the sky was filled with swarms of yellow butterflies. There was not a direction I could look without seeing these butterflies. It was a surreal and magical experience, I couldn't help but to have a huge smile permanently attached to my face as we rode through the towns. The thoughts in my head (riding on the back of a bike gives the mind much time for thinking) told me, "How wonderous is this that in the midst of this trip that is about a soulful rebirth of sorts, I would be surrounded by butterflies - themselves the very symbol of change?" Also, at this time, I was hoping to change my perspective about the trip. Instead of viewing Mr. Hiep's lack of English as a nuisance, I began to see it as funny and entertaining. He has Hiepisms which are absolutely hysterical and I know that whenever I remember him in the future I will remember these. "Why not. If you never try, you never know" he always says. "Fucking cool man." or "We drink little beer. You drink little beer, you make sleep. No drink little beer, no make sleep." and "You make picture. Come on, make picture."

The thrill and feel of fredom from riding on the bike is hard to recreate in any other activity that I had done. And whether or not the scenary is the most eye catching in the world, passing by the towns and watching all the kids run towards the bike with huge smiles on their faces and their hands waving furiously back and forth is an image to truly remember. Any time I have gotten to thinkomg too much in my head, as soon as I see the children a huge smile finds its way to my face and I am brought back to the moment and to the beauty of this world. Beauty doesn't always have to be wrapped up in a nice package for it to still exist. We just have to look at the packaging in a different way. Thanks butterflies.

Getting spiritual in Vietnam

Some of you may know that I left for a 24 day journey in Vietnam on March 13th. Today being March 18th then this is my fifth day of travel. There was absolutely no planning involved in this trip, all I knew was that I would fly into Saigon and stay with my friend Primavera and then follow my instincts and desires until at least making it to Hanoi in order to fly home on April 6th. This journey is kind of a spiritual rebirth of sorts. The last five years of my life have truly been the most difficult and yet perhaps most important years of my life. However, roughly two weeks prior to this trip, I experienced a rejuvenation of spirit. I came to life again as I like to call it. The purging of emotional pains and the exploration and discovery of a new love for myself have driven a newfound excitement and peace regarding this journey of life. I told a friend that I felt "like I am allowing myself to live again." As soon as I began to feel this way, amazing things began to happen in my life.

One of these things happens to be this trip to Vietnam. For some reason or other I have always wanted to come here, but didn't know when it would happen. I definitely know that it happened now for a reason. With the rebirth of my love for life also came back my sense of spiritually, of some greater force (perhaps indescribable and undefinable) at play in the universe and in my life. I began to "what I call listen to the universe" and to take moments of brief meditation in order to center myself and stay in the moment. In this manner, I am traveling around Vietnam. I am simply trying to stay aware of connections as they occur and to remain flexible and willing to follow them. This is definitely not always easy. But, something happened yesterday which is one such connection.

I just got into a new town called Nha Trang (it's the largest beach resort in Vietnam) and I wasn't exactly in the best of moods. I had spent the last two days in the Mekong Delta on this completely unorganized tour where I had to grapple with my feelings about watching a bunch of western tourists point cameras in people's faces because they live in a way much different than our experiences. And I not only travled from the Delta back to Saigon, but then spent the night aboard a sleeper bus from Saigon to Nha Trang where I had to listen to my ipod the entire time because the bus driver would not stop constantly honking his horn. Through all this, I had managed to stay positive and write in my journal about the learning experience and such. When I left my hotel to explore Nha Trang, I felt irritated that I didn't have a car or motor bike to get around to places of peace and serenity. I thought that I wanted to try to make it to this secluded beach called Jungle Beach but didn't feel comfortable getting there on my own. As I was walking along the road feeling that this town really was not where I wanted to be, a motor bike driver stopped in front of me calling out, "Hey, what are you doing now?" When I turned to see him, I found out that he was the very same motor bike driver that I had ridden around Saigon with. He took me to a bunch of temples and other sites and it was a very good tour. This could not have been a mere coincidence in my mind, so I told him that I was trying to get to Jungle Beach. He said that he would take me there and off we went. Well, turns out he wasn't going to take me to Jungle Beach at all, but I completely let go of any expectations and thought that wherever he takes me is where I need to go. He took me to a Pagoda where I marveled at the power of the feminine as it was a shrine to a Goddess. This was important because I have been wrestling lately with what it means to be female and seeing strong depctions of women goddesses carved into stone gave me a peace of mind that femininity is much more all encompassing than modern societies filters have allowed.

Next, he took me to a buddist monastary and temple. As soon as I got there I was approached by a woman wanting me to buy some postcards to support the orphans that lived at the monastary. She told me that 18 orphans lived there and they needed the money to help them live. I really, really wanted to give her money but I didn't have much with me and I had to save what I had for the motor bike driver. I began to climb up the steps to reach this giant white Buddha at the top of the hill. Along the way, there were multiple people asking for money. When I got to the big Buddha, there was a group of kids playing cards and I suspected that they were some of the orphans that lived there. I felt an intense swelling of compassion for these children and wished that there was something with a more permanent effect that I could do other than give a few dollars. I walked up to the Buddha and there was a shrine inside. I took off my shoes, gave a bow and approached the altar. I stood in front of it with my eyes closed trying to take in my feelings and emotions. Before I knew what hit me, I began to cry. I felt overwhelmed at the positive changes that have taken place in my life as well as a desire to make a difference. I made a vow to myself that I would try to figure out a way at some point in my life to actually be able to come somewhere not for vacation and not only to volunteer to have a cool experience, but to do something to make a lasting impression. As a few tears trickled down my face, an old man sitting in the temple lit a stick of incense and brought it over to me. I then placed it in the urn and watched it burn. This experience was so powerful to me. And to think that when I left my hotel room that morning I simply thought that I wanted to go find a cool beach and that the temples around here were nothing special and relaxing was more important. Well, I guess this was the reason the motor bike rider reappeared for me. Thanks universe is all I can say.

A poem

I only have the energy
to write in poetic form
what's happenings not right
not just
not free for all
there is a cost involved
which stands for one and all
disregarding race or idioma
i won't act as if in a coma
teach the truth
fight what's right
inagurate today
they say change has come our way
but the reality stays the same