Cancer

Resting on a story that flows through
Melodies I've never heard
I am awaiting a bliss that only flows through faith
With eyes so sad and passion so frail
A seeker of the things that can't be found
Laughing at my pain and crying at my jokes
Who would have thought it would be so much
When time has nothing to do
With anything?
I wonder what it means to feel closer
What does it look like to remain?
Confronting the strongest part
Only to find that weakness is stronger
And if the awakening is true
How much harder must it be
If all you have is nothing?
Why does my spirit end
Where yours begins
If all I feel is you in me and me in you?
Why did it come if only to leave
Where all it tried to do was
Be bigger than you?

Just Smile!

Don't wake up surprised that you are loved! Welcome each day with a smile... it might change your life. Smiling relaxes your body, makes you feel happy, and shares light with those around you. Don't be too rushed that you never notice the fragrant flowers all around you, or the energy of the graceful trees! Take time to notice the people who you come in contact with, they are your brothers and sisters. Everyone has something wonderful to share. Among the chaos surrounding you, delight in the simple things... a glass of water, the sky above, a friend.

Inside my heart.

I admit it. I am heartbroken. I find myself surrounded often by other people, distracted, staring off into nothing, not really listening to what's being said around me. I'm hearing, but hardly listening. As my eyes wander, I escape into the mess I've made inside my heart. Often I feel sadness, but just as often I feel hope. Lately, hope hasn't been showing up enough. I look at the world from a broad perspective, I feel pain and hopelessness, and that everyone's fucking everyone over. But at the same time, I look at a tiny, blue flower in the grass, and realize how much that flower makes me a better person. Life is beautiful, so why am I so sad? There are so many flowers, more flowers than there are wars!.... but still, there are wars.... Wars on our children, wars on our minds, wars on our humanity.

This burden I am holding for the world is a blessing and a curse. It is so amazing to feel such a close connection to the world, but it is so hard. To deeply feel something is beautiful and sacred, but can be painful and difficult.

I want to give everything. But I don't know what to give it to.

I think I just need to listen.

Weeping for the world

Weeping for the world

I want to hold you in my arms

But it's you that's holding me

Tears pour down my face

I want to change the world

But the world's just changing me

I cry for you world

and you're soaking up my tears

Seen the children who ran from war

and a mother bury her child because of war

But we are just your children.

In need of a revolution.....

I'm open to a fragrance of the lightest of mountains
as I reach for your embrace
speaking words, drowning.
Swim in the heartbeat of your passion
adoring your mistakes that
glide you into serenity. Swim faster in compassion.
With open arms to love
sit and rest in the abundance
observe your tree, reaching to the sun
Let go just as you begin to swing back-
falling at that height
into the embrace of the water
Want to know the taste of life so sweet
Want to know my very best description of who I will be
Want to walk away
hand in hand
towards the state of oblivious flight
reaching for endless sparks
of distant hearts
And nothing's worth a war
But who am I to say I'm peaceful?
When I tear you to the ground
With the me, I'm rights, your wrong
and you deserve to hear it.
Need to silence the ego
and question my answers
You are grace and I'm
The bullet to this dream
Afraid of fear
Afraid that I'll believe all I think
As she seeps into deep mystery
Frail and fast asleep
For intentions of movement and release of apathy
Minds are wasted with the voices of consumption
and bitterness
Weak choices to find
supply for demand
A fire to burn the echoes that last
and betray your dreams
A fire to refine a revolutionary love
that screams through prison bars
No more I know than what I know right now
So give in to hope
And aspire for greater light to consume
our restless lives
Holding fast to our tender dreams
Filled with gratitude
We share our souls
for the seeds to grow

The change begins with you. Fly away with me!

Free Love!

"Those who can, do. Those who understand, teach."

One thing that has discouraged me about education that I have experienced or seen in America is the power structures of the classroom. So often the teacher stands at the head of the classroom with the role that "I am the teacher. You are my students." I hope to abolish that structure if I ever have a classroom again.... with the open awareness that "we are all students...I am learning from you just as much, if not more, as you are learning from me. We are working at this thing called life together."

Yes, yes it's true!

I have fallen in love with Salsa dancing......Cuban style!!!!!
I'm embarrassed to say, but I've taken five classes in one week!

To Be Aware

I hear it all the time, "it is so hard to be aware." Soon everything we do seems to contribute to the oppression of someone else or the destruction of our planet. We wake up in the night, unable to sleep, worried, burdened, yearning... feeling that what we are doing right now is not enough. We send prayers, we send money, we make plans hoping that one day our space will change and through that we will change the world. And at times an even more overpowering frustration arises... we are in the middle of a chaos we have created and our lives are not what we want them to be. We see ourselves as the source of our own misery and feel unconnected to the one hand that not only created our story, but created the history of the universe. We are either idle and unable to move, or constantly restless, looking for answers, a hope, a purpose. We begin to fear the questions that we are asking and even fear our own dreams. We may even surpress our own questions with words. overwhelming. difficult. effort. unrealistic. can't. time. And then we miss what it feels like to be a child again.

I am challenging myself to be not only trusting, but patient. As I live in each moment, I desire to breath in the difficult passions that stir in my heart and be delighted with the very things that make me uncomfortable. For the second that I ignore my longings, I am embracing the lie that says my dreams can never be reached, and I miss out on what it means to grow.

Rainer Maria Rilke writes in his Letters to a Young Poet,

“...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

Hungry. (Thoughts after going to Cuba)

What would you have done if you were weaker? If you had less? An obstacle to know what's going on. I can find peace in such oppression. If we are equal why am i so angry that I cannot have enough. I'm not free...birds inside a cage...too much Control. hungry...wanting more, more, more, a better life more choice more certainty...nothing to hide. Freedom. From Fear.
All my dreams depend on the dreams of this government. So grateful they value education, health care, and housing.
I know I am worthy. The simple fact of my humanity.
Sacrificing abundance that the bottom may have plenty. I know my voice means something...means change. You may try to keep me silent but I will never stop singing and dancing. The music brings solidarity...brings freedom. And the music will play, will live, will breath...every hour and moment. Chains hold back but can never suppress my culture, my family. the love.

We are either starving, never hungry, or so full.
Cuba left me with more questions than answers. I found more abstract similarities to the U.S. than most may imagine.

What does it really mean to be free? Is my freedom at the cost of someone else's captivity? I would love to hear what you think..............