Stir the air

I arrived to my Airbnb in Bordeaux yesterday, which is in the historic part of the city right by the theater, where I heard the choir practicing this afternoon and my jaw dropped in awe.

My host informed me that my place is without air conditioning; installation is not allowed in the historic part of the city. Still, the stone building keeps cool, and she left me instructions for how to keep it temperate during the day, and then refresh it at night. “At night, open everything and stir the air with the fan.”

So, I am here, back at home before going out to a cafe to write a bit more, after stopping on a quiet, tree-lined plaza, (“place” in French) on my slow way home after a high-energy spin class and a walk to an outdoor market, the fan gently blowing. I am stirring the air, and then staying still. Stirring, and stillness.

For Sam, who I am so happy to be visiting here in Bordeaux!

"Live the questions"

I’ve loved this concept of “live the questions,” thanks to the beautiful words of Rilke, since first hearing it in a Marginalian newsletter. It feels more playful, even more empowering, to hold the concept of, “live the questions” than to just “release the ‘how’,” (and trust).

“…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," - Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet.

“Live the questions now… live your way into the answer.” And answers, plural, I would say. Because the way of life is many ways.

And, sometimes, the answers come without the questions.

Life is meant to be enjoyed

Over the past years I’ve come into the belief that life is meant to be enjoyed, and that life doesn’t have to be hard; in fact, life is meant to be enjoyed; it’s meant to be easy, and it’s meant to flow.

It felt like a big, obvious secret to discover, or more like, rediscover, because I think it’s a concept that I think we’re born knowing and, ideally, grow up embodying as freewheeling, playful, imaginative, open children. Then, most of us lose it or are convinced out of it, convinced otherwise, through this conditioned concept of “real life,” and the “real world” and such. (Especially in the U.S., I think! A country founded on the Puritan work ethic, where children were treated as “little adults,” where this world was a necessary, get-through-it earthly stopover to show just how worthy of deliverance to heaven in the afterlife, or whatever.) For more on this, too, I super, super recommend don Miguel Ruiz’s writings of Toltec teachings, like The Four Agreements, which talk about “the dream of the planet.”

I remember hearing at one point that…

Buddha’s famous quote “life is suffering,” is actually a imprecise translation. It’s more so that, “life is enduring,” and it speaks to the idea of the continuity, the forever flow of life.

It’s not a justification for suffering; not as setting ourselves up to expect that whole human experience to be that way. (And that’s the interesting thing about translation; it reveals so much about the values and energy of a culture. I loved reading and writing about this concept, especially in relation to Jorge Luis Borges’ writing on it when I studied Spanish literature in college. An aside.) I heard that so long ago I can’t remember when or from whom, but it’s stayed with my powerfully, “empowerfully,” I’ll invent a word to say, since.

So, here they are, the big secrets of life as I’ve intuited and discovered them so far, through my one narrow, singular and also somehow universal (as we all are!) lived experience.

  1. Life is meant to be enjoyed

  2. Life doesn’t have to be hard—in fact, life is meant to be easy, easeful

For Dawn, whose name alone represents the coming of light, and who has so gently and sweetly guided me through so much of my own spiritual exploration.

"Flow down and down in always widening rings of being"

I think of this Rumi quote often, this one line, the closing line, from one of his most known poems, A Community of the Spirit, as translated by Coleman Barks. I found this post, this quote, in my drafts, and in the spirit of surrender and ease, 10:10pm on a Thursday evening, felt it as resonant as ever, and the moment to share.

"Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.”

This line comes—flows—to me often, and continues to encourage me release to live life in a flow state, and to let live. To release, to become, bigger, wider, more open, freer. Let go, let flow.

The full poem:

There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight

of walking in the noisy street

and being the noise.

Drink all your passion,

and be a disgrace.

Close both eyes

to see with the other eye.

Open your hands,

if you want to be held.

Sit down in the circle.

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel

the shepherd’s love filling you.

At night, your beloved wanders.

Don’t accept consolations.

Close your mouth against food.

Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.

You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”

Twenty more will come.

Be empty of worrying.

Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison

when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.

Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always

widening rings of being.

On surrender

Today at 11:11am Los Angeles time, my friend texted me. It was 1:11pm Chicago time, where she now lives, and we’ve developed this habit of texting each other when we see the times align across our time zones, a little shared moment of numbers magic, even if contrived, which reminds us of our friendship, and our own magic.

Today, I told her that I’d had a harder morning, and took some time for a good cry (emotional sweat). She encouraged me to let it out (“No shame; it only makes us stronger.”) and shared that her current personal focus is getting comfortable with asking for help, and letting go of things. Only a few minutes later, she sent me a text with “Just saw this” and a photo of a calendar page and quote.

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it. -Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

I’m currently reading The Surrender Experiment: by Michael Singer, which is his autobiography. Surrender is something we talk about often in Vedic meditation (like “surrendering preferences”) and I’ve found it to be a freeing, and expansive concept. As Singer describes it:

What would happen if we respected the flow of life and used our free will to participate in what’s unfolding, instead of fighting it? What would be the quality of the life that unfolds? Would it just be random events with no order or meaning, or would the same perfection of order and meaning that manifests in the rest of the universe manifest in the everyday life around us?

In practice, Singer describes it as:

The practice of surrender was actually done in two, very distinct steps: First, you let go of the personal reactions of like and dislike that form inside your mind and heart; and second, with the resultant sense of clarity, you simply look to see what is being asked of you by the situation unfolding in front of you.

I think of it often as trying to swim upstream—a cling, reach, for what was, what we know—as opposed to flowing with the current, surrendering to be led downstream to a place that may be, probably is, so great, that we can’t even envision it because we’ve never even been to it! Also, it makes the process, the journey, the trip, so very much more easeful and enjoyable. And that part, I think, is just is important. Maybe most important. Life is a constant flow, constant change.

To surrender.

For AshRising, Ashley angel! To floating through, and surrendering to, life and all its magic together

Miracles happen all the time

When I was sick in January, I started watching episodes of the well-being and sustainable living docuseries “Down to Earth with Zac Efron,” (super recommend it). The second episode centers on water. In it, they travel to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France, which is believed to have healing waters. They meet the resident doctor, who is on staff to verify pilgrims’ claims of miracle healings. It’s really incredible to see the exchange and explanations, to see the medical doctor show X-ray, scans, documented evidence of healings that occurred after people visited the site, inexplicable by scientific medical knowledge. Since 1862, the Church has recognized 70 cases as “miraculous.”

Last week I reached out to a close friend when I was needing to process in relation to someone who knows me well, and she also happens to know a particular area of medicine well in which I was seeking solace. (A miracle.) She said many beautiful, helpful, truthful things to me in that conversation. She said, “Miracles happen all the time.” She’s right. They do. They really do.

A couple days later I was walking along the Venice Beach boardwalk with another friend, and we shared a moment of appreciation for the ocean, just over there, shimmering in the late afternoon sun. “The ocean is such a miracle,” she said, apropos of nothing but being in that moment. And in that, I was in awe.

Miracles happen all the time.

For Micha, a miracle of a friend with whom 16 years has been full of miracles, from a sorority to a move to Buenos Aires, a Sullivan Street psychic and everything in between, including (soon!) Ibiza

Do one less thing

Sometimes I think life is a rotation between the two sides of the same advice coin, a back-and-forth flip that is sometimes quick, like both in one day, and, other times, we’re on the same side for some time. Before, it was Do this one thing. Right now, it’s: Do one less thing.

Do one less thing, make one less plan, make one choice less, say one less thing, deliberate one time less. There’s a peace that comes in granting that, I’ve found. A space for settling, and for something to naturally shift.

Never turn your back on the waves

I started the day in the ocean. Fully submerged, a baptism of a new week, an appreciation for the nearby beach that I consider to be my front yard, and a cold, salty (in the best way) full-body refreshing reminder that I feel very lucky to live where I do and how I do, that this could be every day and any day for me.

When I plunged underwater the first time I had the gleeful feeling of being a teenager again, down at Belmar, the Jersey Shore, with high school friends, bobbing in the waves, diving directly into the biggest of them, and on those very-big-wave days, letting them throw us where they wanted to, wherever they would, when the next one came too soon. We always came up laughing, swimsuits twisted, always better, happier and more hopped up on life for having taken the ride.

The second time I went under I remembered my dad laughing, and telling me how, when I was younger and we were at the beach (I’d probably just learned how to swim), I told him I was going to teach him how to swim in the ocean. He grew up in Acapulco, Mexico, and spent more days than not in the ocean. It was, of course, actually him who taught me to swim in the ocean, and he always, always told me: “Never turn your back on the waves.” Face them, see them, be with them. Dive into them or ride them, but never turn your back on the waves.

The past week, week+, has felt more emotionally intense for me. Because of things that unexpectedly arose, as (expectedly) so often happens, and because it’s just sometimes like that, full of feeling. It was a reminder, an opportunity, to me to just be with it. To not try to change it, to not force into a direction or a feeling or a time constraint, but to surrender it to fully feel it and let it go, to let it wash over me. It was a reminder of how so much comes in waves, even when part of the same experience. I’m proud of myself for facing it, for facing the waves, and so appreciative for close relations like friends who, with heart-centered kindness, openness and invitation, were there, encouraged me to share, went deep with me and, also, let me be.

For my dad, who showed me how to be with the waves and play through life at all ages, and always with joy