Sequoia: healing from the roots up

“Continue to unfold. Find your worthiness in the learning and unlearning. The breaking and the healing. Find peace within your broken pieces and be made whole.”  ―  Minaa B. There is nothing to be fixed. You are already whole . You are simply peeling away the layers to your inherent wholeness. Sometimes you hit a really thick, tough-hide layer that has been there for a long time. It fucking hurts to peel that one off. But you do it, bit by bit. Just be here. Just be here. Just be here. Just show up, every day. Honor where you are at. You are doing the best that you can, I know you are. Just breathe. Just be here, sweet, beautiful one. Surrender. Life has got you. The entire universe is holding you up effortlessly, and is rooting you on. Be here now. Exactly where you are. Don't wish you were somewhere else, more healed, more free. More like someone else. You are right where you are meant to be, right now. Trust the process.  Every moment of your now is creatin...

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."     -Anais Nin A flashback to the morning thoughts of emancipation..... This morning I woke up at five am. The wind chimes on Oma, the large maple tree, were ringing loudly. Ringing me awake. I lay nestled in my warm bed, with one hand over my belly and one over my heart. The warm energy of my body vibrating under my hands. And I thanked my body; for holding me. Being with me. Casing my soul. And for holding all the pain and fear of the past many years. I said, no wonder, darling, you have felt so unwell for so long.  Heartburn, heart hurting - literally. Headaches, bloating, blocked energy. Painful cramps, pms, sore, tense muscles in neck and lower back. Utter fatigue and drained energy. And no wonder, darling, you have struggled so fucking hard with eating issues. Eating beyond the point of your body feeling full, comfort and emotional eating. The...

"Often, we need to put dead things to rest, so that new life can grow. And further, the thing put to rest - whether it be a loved one, a dream, or a false way of seeing - becomes the fertilizer for the life about to form. As the well-used thing joins with the earth, the old love fertilizes the new; the broken dream fertilizes the dream yet conceived; the painful way of being that strapped us to the world fertilizes the freer inner stance about to unfold."   -Mark Nepo You cannot force the soul to do anything. The soul is shy and wild. You must create a safe space for it to emerge in the way it chooses to do so. And when it is ready, it will shed its skin, to make way for the new skin underneath. The other night I had one of those gut-wrenching, heaving cries. A good cry. The release of build up that needed to come out. Afterwards, I lay on my back with a pillow between my shoulder blades, my heart chakra open wide. The cat came and curled up on my chest, right ove...

The face of tomorrow is shining and laughing. It is washed fresh.  It has all the laugh lines, the love cracks. It has the deep purple moons under the eyes, from all the sleepless nights, the crying eyes. But somehow the moons make it even more beautiful. They are beams of life, shooting out, mellowing, illuminating. Everything is illuminated in this face of tomorrow. Everything is forgiven. It is fresh now. In it, I believe all things are possible. All things are new. I am old enough to learn that it has always been this way. Now is tomorrow. Yesterday is now. It is all the same. But my soul has had time to grow. I can now appreciate tomorrow as today. Tomorrow looks like living my life exactly the way I want to. Not how other people say I should. My face has been washed in tears, and bathed in smile-light. And now it recognizes that both (tears and smiles) are equally valuable. The face of tomorrow (now) is awash with pleasure. It is flushed with desire. It is li...

"Be here now."  - Ram Dass The plane skidded down, to land me in a truly foreign place. My first time in India. It was so different, it was other-worldly. Hot, baking, pungent, mad, colorful India. My twenty-one year old heart was fluttering wildly. We stepped out of the airport, into chaos. The first thing that bombarded me was the heat. I had never felt so hot before. It was like stepping into an oven that you couldn't turn off. The sweat instantly started running in a river down my back. People, everywhere. Noise, din, motion. It wasn't like stepping back in time, it was like stepping into an alternate reality. I couldn't stop smiling, my third-eye filled with pure wonderment. The shock was like suddenly becoming fully awake. We were bustled into mini taxis, with our backpacks and shiny white faces. We went speeding down the freeway of chance. In India, traffic rules are more of an after thought. It is sheer, crazy, dangerous, toxic delight to b...

"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken."  -Oscar Wilde Manifesto for a wild and free life: Choose to see life as an adventure. Create mini adventures : they could be anything; changing the route you walk to work, trying a new coffee shop, making a point to go to a part of the city, or on a hike, where you have never been before.  See your every day circumstances, places, and people through new eyes.  Break up old habits and create new ones. Change up the neural pathways in your brain, make them work to create new, exciting beliefs and thoughts about your life and existence.  Start somewhere. Take baby steps . Start before you’re ready (you will never be ready!) So just start. Do something new. Brainstorm ways you can live as a free spirit.  Let loose and go for it . Let your hair down if you wear it up. Wear it up in an afro if you normally wear it down. Change things up. Go out dancing. Smile at strangers. Do something...

"I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than Lord among those without dreams and desires."  -Khalil Gibran Yesterday, it crept up on me. That thing. It has been lurking in my subconscious, held at bay by pernicious optimism. But it will never fully go away, because it is in the roots of me. So it shows up as a passing sorrow, here and there, in my life. It always finds a way in, or out, a way to express its essence. It is the sorrow of not accomplishing my dreams in life. It is usually quiet on a good day. Or when the peace is stronger than the usual tumult. Like after I have spent time in solitude, in nature, meditated, or had a cleansing cry. When I am inspired by someone or something, am reading a good book, or the sun is shining on my skin and soaking in. (Oh! There are many moments!) But the sorrow is still there, underneath. Because there will always be great dreams that I hold in my heart, that I have not yet achieved. I...