Around Me

i love these souls surrounding me 
with love and caring and food to eat

each morning i wake, 
they are there to help in whatever they can or even can't

don't know the force that makes it all work, 
sending angels from above to my front door

i am left to sit still with a smile on my face 
visible only to those willing to gaze

even when times are tough and the road is obscured by the darkness of night without the moon

they appear from the unknown and gently take me home, 
leading me by my breath while i am left amazed

and i thank their heart for being with me 
despite being imperfect with broken dreams

maybe thorns aren't that big and the petals enough bright 
to be an inspiration, relief, and delight

To Be Free

Remember your place in this vast existence, a grain of nothing with the potential to be beyond anything you currently know. Stop during the day, here and there, to remind yourself, to find a perspective that's larger than the uneducated thought with its roots in the past. Go about your day with a smile on your face and a warmth emanating from your hands. This moment is complete and the next will also be. Seek the highest thing for yourself, knowing it may morph into much more than you started with. Climbing a small hill after a lifetime in the valley is a big experience, and yet there are higher peaks still. Enjoy the now with a longing for more. Take care of something or someone but always willingly. Rejoice in missing someone or something, as you have had the privilege to allow these to enter you deeply. Move toward removing the walls of protection around yourself, for this is where possibility lies. You can and are meant to be free.

Oh God!

Never in my life did I think I would myself here.

I mean it. Never!

Born in atheist Russia to an engineer father and a doctor mother, I grew up knowing there was no god.  What's more, there was a deep understanding that if you believe in a higher entity, you are deemed stupid.

How dare they put "in god we trust" on a quarter I first saw as an immigrant at the age of 12. Not only is it presumptuous. It is just plain stupid! Oh, the thoughts of a 12-yo. 

Needles to say, I did not seek spirituality. It wasn't just because I already knew, I didn't see the need to search. Still, even as a girl of 10, I walked around feeling alone and disconnected. This I remember very vividly. By then, I already had tears in my eyes walking to school where I was a model student and a great track runner.

Fast forward many decades, my-always-sick body decided enough was enough. It was very clear to me that in about two months, I would not be treading this earth again. 

Something inside was not willing to accept.

As a wise man told me once: "Hope never dies."

I was frantically searching now.. Don't get me wrong. I didn't have any lightning strike me. I was not seeking spirituality. I only wanted to be able to eat and sleep. And oh yeah! To have enough energy to walk a mile. That was my one great goal. 

And so the ground was prepped for an unexpected surprise. 

Meditation was my answer to a new life. A life I, once again, never, thought was possible for me. 

Before then, I only wanted to be kind. I only longed to be giving. I only wished to be happy and alive. Those things were for other people. I was doomed to be sad and moody.

It's been a long journey. In years, 10. In experience, timeless. A journey of some downs but so many more ups. Some very high ups. The body, mind, energy have been evolving and they have reached a certain peak.  I find myself standing on this peak at the moment with a deep realization: I have and always been a spiritual seeker. Without any understanding or awareness, the longing to be fully alive, which for so long has escaped me, has always been there. Hiding. Waiting for me to open the tightly closed lid.

When I sit with my eyes closed, I experience a world of great vastness within myself. Everything I do on the outside, everything I do with my body that gives me some joy, dancing, biking, hugging is always measured against a newly set gold standard: the joy and the profoundness of meditation.

I now know there is something significantly bigger that resides within the walls of this little body. And why should anyone care? Because, for me, the closer I am to this big something, the more it breathes within me, the more alive and beautiful I and my life become. 

We can call it god, we can call it the source, divinity.  In Hebrew, there are 7 names for this unnamed phenomenon. Doesn't matter. 

I still don't believe in god. I only know there is something else. Because it has happened and continues to happen to me. My eyes opened the minute I closed them.

For the first time in my life, I am proud to say that I am a spiritual seeker. I seek the living experience of that magical wisdom and knowing. I want to bask in it when I eat, sleep, work, or sit.

I have become a conscious spiritual seeker. 

What a blessing has fallen upon this little life.

Stop Lying, My Friend

Open your eyes and look honestly
Stop the deception and see reality
Nothing doing to admit what is true
Wasting your time hiding behind the booze, the travel, 
the fake laughter, the chatter
True joy takes home behind the untruth
Once you admit
There is nothing more to lose
Look at my eyes and see the warmth
Words may be harsh to your ears but that's all
Just take a step closer to you
Walk through the mud, break out of the cocoon
There you will see a big tree of hope
You can lie down beneath into the arms once folded
Sink deeper still into the dark of calm
It is there. it is there
That you will be found

Out of Prison

Like a fountain
You should be
Not like an empty container
With a hole that leaks
Everything that has been poured
Into thee
While you wait for me
Without knowing how to 
See all that is already yours
Wanting more each day
Feeling a lack
Despite the attempts
Made to climb the ladder up
Step out of your box
It's poorly lit inside
Fly higher than the tree
That's been watching you for months
It's tiring to be 
Available to thee
There is a tiny piece
Of giving and of peace
Inside the hungry heart
Hiding behind the refined tongue
Like a fountain
You should be
Life giving to those 
Around thee
Only then you will
Be flying free

Find Me

Only if you want it
Only if you want
Find the road that leads you
Straight into the cove

I don't want to haunt you
I don't want to entice
If you want to know
Take one step and try

We will sit together
We may even sing
Leave the lie behind you
Spread the angel's wings

Come this way unsteady
Fall and try again
Waiting is a skill to nourish
Come, don't shy away

I don't want to chase you
Nor persuade no more
If you see a fire
It's for you to know

I will sit alone
Patient, yet demand
When you approach near
Take off your shoes
And rest

The Muse

I thought of you and then you wrote
To say to me what I earlier spoke
That you want to see how my cheeks have glowed
And to show me the light that is missing in your part of the world
And I thought of you and wanted to tell you
That I want it all 
In all its dimensions
That I want that one house and that sand and the river
That I want to run like the big and free spirit
That I want to love without guilt, shame, or fear
That I want to be the person worthy of living

And then I wanted to scream to the seven winds
And in all directions that there might be
How I long to be the force that breathes 
A life into you and all others around me

After all has been said in the form poetic
The last line of thought was summed up with words less epic
Still here they are
Ringing true to my being
The sentence without a rhyme but with my hopeful meaning
I want to explode with the love that can't be contained inside my flesh and bone. 

I am impatient. I am stuck. And I need to go home.

The end.

Gone

I want to be near the flame
Cool as a spring breeze 
Gentle as a kind hand

Set me to a slow burn
Ignite me from the core
Let me disappear undisturbed

Find me this time
Let out a surprised sigh
I'll fall to my knees
Brush your bare feet
And forget to breathe

Real Laugh

What is the next step in this "camino?" And where is the next door opening clearly? What will it take to walk the length? What's the direction and is the "best?"

Looking at sunshine with a smile of contentment. Everything's here, nothing is lacking. Future's wide open unknown to you, though some may say, nothing really is as you think it might be. 

Whichever belief is upheld in the mind, it goes as it goes on its own accord. And when moon is so bright and as big as the sun, the longing that's deep tends to shout loud. And maybe it's true, and maybe it's a fluke, and maybe there's nothing to pay attention to. Just sit with the flame and ask her her name, and reach out to her with a question in your eye.  Just maybe she'll say "hi" in her own way and disguise. Keep awaiting and be wise to know how. With heart full of hope and eyes wide open, with makeshift of a microscope looking for a door slowly opening. If there is a light that pulls you inside, be enough brave to not glance behind, You just might be given a chance to really laugh.

Growing Up

Still a child with a wrinkled face
Looking for answers and a bit of a chase
Searching for something to secure a place
That raises her higher than the current space

There's always something that nags beneath
And won't relax until snatches a kiss
Vanity rises and shows its face
All-too-ready to appear, just like this!

It's worth a minute to note its existence
And greet it, embrace it with a bit of distance
Indulge it and ignore it all at once
Its only game is to win against all odds.

While freedom resides just an inch below
It knows no pain, its job is to glow
Don't be enamored with the surface or skin
Bid it farewell, you will know the queen.