My Heart Breaks Open

I met

the Love of my life

Whose darling Face

I caress

In the shadows

Of the long night

Whose Body

I unfurl

In the delicious throws

Of ecstasy

I met

the One

of my dreams

In the most unexpected place

Here is the story:

I thought he was someone, a friend

but his finite body

Dropped me down

Rejected, to the bottom of my well

How I prayed to draw him closer!

Finally, we embraced

His lips were mine for a moment

Familiar and holy.

After one sweet night he left me

Closing the door

I cried.

To the man:

I’ve peeled Him from you

Made two mirages

In the desert of my mind

Choiceless I chose the latter

Which is your imprint

In my soul.

I’ll draw Him near

He is perfect

He has no body

And He doesn’t speak like you.

His essence follows me everywhere

Not only in night

But in day, too

I celebrate Him

He is the One I was meant to love.

When I see you, His mortal twin

My bitterness

Is replaced by jubilation

Because

You led me here

To this infinite love

I can hardly contain

Oh, it has no bottom

Oh, it has no top

No beginning, no end

It is devoted, unshakable

It is Eternal

Eternal

I throw myself at His feet

And kiss the sky

Eat from His ancient palm

The wisdom of Heaven

Bask in His rays

I belong to the dawn

To the freedom

I am a child

of God.

The Humans

The Humans

They stomp

Into the water

With their dogs

And their big feet

Yakking

There are big ripples

And I can no longer hear the waterfall

They stomp

Down the path

Leaving dog shit

Spray paint

Thundering bass

They have no life in their limp swinging arms

They have no tenderness in their tense backs

They are hiding behind heir sunglassed eyes and gum

They are cowering in the hollow of their carefully muscled chests

They have no goodness in their eyes

They have no wisdom in their jaws

Didn’t they see me sitting here quietly?

playing with puddles of sunlight

The dragon fly

The white petals.

Can’t they see God’s eye in the clouds?

Do they not smell

the fresh rain?

Need I say more!?

I could almost hate them! The humans!

Just then,

One turns to me. Exquisite!

I feel such immense love

My body quivers

with understanding

Perfect understanding:

I am one!

Oh beautiful chaotic thing!

I am too! Fleshy ape banging pots and pans throwing fists

Through the upside down world

Driven, manipulated by impossibly complex

unseen forces!

All

the tides of history

Pounding on the shores of memory

I did not learn

But was forced to take

the false stories

Forged into textbooks

By white men

I didn’t want it! I didn’t want it!

Subjugating dominating owning vying for power

Ripping apart perfection

Pulverizing it like dust underfoot

Oh so innocently! Oh so ignorantly! Oh it is hard so hard to grasp!

I can feel it there, at the edges of my mind… Perfection!

She was always here

And we talked over her

Yakking loudly

We are doing it

Right now.

Good Enough

I can’t be everything to every one

Good enough is not measured

In weeks or years

I don’t have all the answers

And that is okay

Still, time is an honest companion

And death is an angel on my shoulder.

I believe in the clarity of sunlight

The winking white flowers

The harmony of voices

Blending sweet as honeyed wine.

I drink deep of this nowness

It is fleeting and delicate

Like a bird nesting in my heart

Tending to her newborn chicks

pained from eyes opening to reality

Brutal, chaotic, ever so strange.

I face the beast of it

Knowing I’m good enough

Knowing I am okay

Knowing I am miracle

I am the shine of sun and moon

The shine of forest leaves and hummingbirds

I face, I face

That which makes me kneel

I am unafraid.

With the purity of love, we will overcome

Old Mother

The river of life runs through me


And comes out every month


I am female


It chose me


And so I am closer to the door of life and death.

Every month a tiny egg is loosed 


Promise of impossibly

Great love


A tiny body

I might hold


Not unlike my own

If only I could feel 


An ounce of this love


For strangers


Or for those 


Who have done me wrong


There might be a chance


To heal 


This Old Mother


Choking on plastic.

Whose branches creak


Amphibians leap


Leaves lace 


In twos and fours


Stars


Whisper

Oh, forgive us, Old Mother.

Lost

There was an easy way out

I forgot which way it was

I tried so hard to find it

that I bumped my head on a low hanging fruit

The door

Which had been locked

The door frame, which had been too low

The words, which had been too many.

Misery

I made friends with my misery

We sat down side by side

I waited for her to subside

Then greeted her like a neighbor.

I said

Here we are

Occupying the same body

You with me, me with you

Both knowing we must come to

Some kind of truce!

You see

This loneliness

Doesn’t make any sense

Can’t you see how busy I am

With my darling friends

And my cat?

And this suffering

Well, really now

I’ve already outsmarted

Do I even need

to explain, why there is (clearly), no reason at all

For your antics?

So listen

friend,

If you need to stay

I want you to know that I’m not going to fight you

Any longer

You can sit at my board

Any time you like

Just promise me, this: one day, when you’re ready

Fly off!

Just like a baby bird

From your nest

In my chest

And leave me here,

Free.

Your Palm

I know it hurts

Don’t look away.

Form yourself like a chrysalis about to bloom

Whose body melts down

Whose body melts down

So those tender wings can take flight.

Form yourself, like a cocoon

Around that shapeless body

No meaning, no sound

Like the bottom of the sea.

It was born to you

This life

Is a gift

This life

Is renewed

Again and again

Your job, is to burn yourself down

To melt

Willingly

A fire in the sun

This happens more than once, unlike the butterfly

It is happening every moment

We are disappearing from view

And r e a p p e a r i n g

It is impossible

And yet it is

Yes,

The life that was born to you

Is a gift

So what are you going to do with it?

I am asking:

I know it hurts

Don’t look away.

Your palm is an unlocked door

Open, where a fist used to be.

love

Love, most precious resource, fabric of my being. You come down from sky and up from roots, growing in my heart, simple and sweet. Your perfume is rose forgiveness, your essence is clarity, pure light. Distilled from muddy waters, ruptured stone, and darkness. I invite you all here into the caverns of me, turning gold. Who mines treasures within must be patient like an old elephant and vigilant like a rattle snake, effervescent like bubbling spring water. Love, precious resource. Life

On being a working musician

I’ve been having an important insight lately into what it means to me to be a working musician. I love music so much and I want to take my career to the furthest reaches it can go. That being said, I never want to gauge my success by my level of fame or fortune, as these things are measured by changing standards I don’t always resonate with, and can never accurately measure the merit of my creations! My goal is to make beautiful, powerful, authentic, meaningful music and to continue to improve my skills and my craft, which is never ending creative process. As long as I am doing that, I am happy, because the rest is truly out of my control. With this mindset I’m also much more able to support my fellow artists, instead of comparing myself, my success, and my musical journey to theirs. We are all unique!

I have so much gratitude for all the people who continue to support me and share their love for my music and songs, it really means so much to me that they have touched you in some way! I am also awed inspired and grateful for all my role models out there, rocking hard! You know who you are!

May Day

I have been contemplating what motivates me, if not being better than, competing, impressing, fame, status, success, money power over others etc?
What gives me my sense of purpose, my sense of worth?

Simple: a desire to contribute, to gift something to the world.

How do I access this desire? How do I actualize myself? Embody who I truly am?

In order to do that I have to be aligned with source, and let that source flow through me. That source is love, is worth. (The easiest way to become connected to source is to become aware of my breath. To become a witness to my breath.)
In order to contribute something I have to believe and feel and know that I am something. To shine the worth that I am.

I don’t know about you but I (admittedly) very often don’t do this! Because I’m
Grumpy or tired or lazy or mean or selfish or ignorant or angry or self righteous or jealous or you name it!! (Human). I “sin” which really means to miss the mark. So I am constantly in a state of humbling myself and forgiving myself, correcting myself and encouraging myself so I can return again to right alignment with source and let it flow through my thoughts words and deeds. To be in the flow. That feels good! The good kind of good. Soul good not just body good. So yummy! Ps. This looks different for everyone. What puts you in the mood is not going to necessarily do it for me. Thank goodness, we are all our own special selves.

I am not waiting for an external catalyst to save me or gift me freedom, inspiration etc. Disney princes, included. I am working *always* to recognize the gifts that I have and the gift that I am. Life is a gift and it is a privilege. Recognizing this I begin to lose entitlement and walk with gratitude and with awareness of the miracle of my existence. I am practicing this. This is who I become. I grow. I change. I evolve. Then I can share that. Then I can be that. Then I can really love.
and that’s what it’s all about, fools. LOvE. Didn’t your mama teach you anything?

Yellow

Today my favorite color is yellow

Flowers on

Florida trees told me so

Trumpeting loud against flat, lengthy blue

Like that Picasso who flows unasked

Into my every colored line

Today my favorite color is yellow

A trumpet for the times

Triumphant vulvas in bright daylight

Unselfconscious and free

Today my favorite color is yellow

Roaring lips who

Declare my majesty:

The Flower Kingdom

The Unceasing Dawn.

Those who stomp with foolish heavy feet

Crushing poetic petals under foot

Fall back, flabbergasted

By the immensity

of this brilliant

yellow flame.

I go down to its

burnt edges

Offering myself to the jaws of indignation

Prying me awake

Finding gaps in my knowledge

Righting wrongs fashioned by human hands

My own in sleep and

others, ragged nail and bone

I still cannot claim as other

Today my favorite color is yellow

Because hope is a wild fire

And we are its food.

Let's have pity and compassion for those afflicted with the disease of hate.

As a white, female, Jewish American from a privileged upbringing in the suburbs of New York City, I admittedly have never experienced the direct mechanisms of hate.  I have not been racially profiled, jailed, threatened with deportation, locked out of opportunities, or subjected to violence and the daily threat of violence.   I can only imagine the emotions that such experiences engender.  I feel indignant that people who look like me have committed such heinous acts and continue to act with remorseless impunity. 

To those people I say, you may look like me, but something about you is different. You have a disease impairing your sensibility, and that disease is called hate.  By other names it is greed. It is racism.  It is war.

Look at your hands.  The way the fingers move.  The way skin, that velvety barrier between air and organs melts across your sinew and bone.  Think about the way those fingers move, how they dance, the things they are capable of.

Now look around.  What do you see?  Walls, maybe a window?  Outside the sun shines down its nourishing rays equally upon rich and poor, healthy and sick, the kind and the cruel.

We've inherited these hands the same way we've inherited this Earth.  We did not create them, nor do we own them. Think about that.

There are those who would protect the haves and take from the have nots.  To these people I would say woe unto you, because you don't know that whatever you do to another is done unto you.  You are not different from the other, and in fact

There is no other.

Zoom out now and look at our planet.  The celestial globe floating like an iridescent gem in its atmosphere, suspended between unfathomably large stretches of vacuum amidst star and supernova.  There we are, man and woman, rich and poor, populating and laughing and dying on that blue globe.  Should we pit one against the next, fighting over resources, squandering our talent and ingenuity in raping and pillaging this gorgeous planet that sustains us?

Because you are brown, and I am white. Because you are man, and I am woman.  Because you are gay, and I am straight.

Because you are Christian and I am Jew. Because you are Muslim and I am Buddhist.

Because you are you, and I am me?

This

is

an egregious

Mistake.

Let's have pity and compassion for those afflicted with the disease of hate.

Let us not give morally bankrupt mutants with the inability to see humanity beyond the confines of their own skin the power to make us feel anything other than beautiful, capable, connected, free, and whole.

I need you, my friends. To listen. To unify. To mobilize.  Let's put down our phones and our small problems and open our eyes.  Connect with the beauty around us. Find out how we can help, create, and get involved. I got your back!

I'd like to know, where do you stand in this dilemma, friend?  All of us are in the same pot, and it's starting to boil.

Isabel

I just read a little article about immigrants and it made me reflect on Isabel, my other mother who recently, suddenly, passed on to the other side. Isabel lived with my family for many years and helped raise my brother and I because both of my parents worked full time. She was with me when I was born, bathed me, fed me, played with me, and took care of me. Until the day she left her body she called me "her dolly" and referred to me as "la niña" to all her friends and family, even though I'm now 29. I miss those names she called me, the sound of her voice, cooking and sharing food with her, and her laugh. Isabel enriched my life in so many ways. She was a part of my family. She ate dinner with us and watched TV with us at night. She and her son, my brother Julio, lived with us until I was 5 when they moved into their own apartment. She took care of our house up until the end of her life. She also cared for multiple family members of mine when they got sick, like my cousin and my grandma. Isabel and her son are from El Salvador and my family helped her get her green card. I can't imagine what my life would have been like without my Isabel, and I miss her terribly. I don't understand the sentiments behind the immigration laws and deportation, and people's strange notions of immigrants from Mexico, Latin and South America. It's truly a travesty. It's truly absurd. Thank you for listening.

Core worth contemplation

What gives us value as human beings? What is our core worth?

This is WHO we are and cannot be affected by how others view us, our triumphs or our failures.

Our core worth is unchanging and unchangeable.

Like the sun that shines, our worth simply exists, separate from any measurements of good and bad, right

and wrong, successful or unsuccessful. We can't compare our worth to anyone else's worth because we

are all equal.

To the mind, this may be hard to understand. Of course some people appear to be “better” than others in

measurable qualities. They might appear to be “prettier,” “smarter,” have “more money,” or be “more

successful.” But the part of us that measures our worth in these terms is really our smaller self. It is our

ego mind, and it is based in separateness and division, survival and competition- the notion that there isn't enough and we need to secure what is ours and hold onto it.

The realist, deepest, and truest part of ourselves knows who we are, and this knowingness is the truth of

who we are.

spur of the moment 7/11/18

I prayed to lose all false notions of self

I was left naked and bare, I am I am

Feathers floating down slow

Nothing to grasp but air

I am I am

Tell me that you love me

You person you

You who are so many and so few

You who are effervescent

You who are white light

You who burns deep blue and bright

I am I am

Tease me with your wickedness

I will only laugh

Delight exists beyond bitterness

But through it we all must pass

Do I regret the notion?

No, I'm free at last

I am I am

Did you think you could chain me up

Chain me with your logic?

No, I am butterfly forming

Soup in a cocoon

Did you think you could pry me open too early

With the pressure in your eyes?

No, I am waiting

My colors, a surprise

Oh, I am patient

Oh I am kind

Oh I am everything

And all you left behind

You threw me in the cauldron

And covered me with time

You tossed me and you boiled me

In pain and love sublime

I am molten lava rock

Carved by wind and rain

I am terror, I am golden

I am shielded, I am pain

I am I am

Believe in me

I am the impossible

Dew drops on a blade

I am the color before sunrise

I am the last time you saw clearly

Hello in there

I am I am

5/25/18 at Jail

Our Hearts, Our Hands Can Heal

You don’t have to be perfect to help other people. You just have to show up, as yourself, with an intention to do something good. Something meaningful. Something kind. And then what do you do?

You listen.

Between the words spoken lives a certain energy, and I believe we can pick up on it by tuning into our intuitive sixth sense (we all have one) which reads verbal cues, body language, and subtle facial expressions like flocks of birds and butterflies read seasonal changes. This is the language I read when I lead women’s circles, when I teach, and when I perform. As a facilitator I think of myself as a navigator of sorts, steering the ship through waves and weather very much beyond my control. I take my cues from outside and inside, the part of me that keeps a pulse on it all, that is a part of it all, as it is a part of me.

Today, in the grey walled room with the heavy door in the maximum security pod in the jail we did a class on Ho‘oponopono, an ancient Hawaiian reconciliation technique made popular by Ihaleakala Hew Len, Ph.D, student of Hawaiian Kahuna Morrnah Simeona. Standing in a circle we walked slowly, repeating the magical words at the heart of this technique:

I'm sorry

Please forgive me

Thank you

I love you

We said the words over and over until something in us released and allowed that ineffable flow of healing that can neither be spoken of nor denied. It is the very ground of our being, the “zero-point” as Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len calls it, and it is where our healing begins and ends. In each moment, with each footstep, those women in their stripes peering out from black and brown and white faces, with curly hair and eyes sinking down, or lighting up periodically, spoke and felt something happening. Resistances fell away and we were left in awe, silently weeping, smiling, or laughing.

Forgiveness is a gift and it can be our resilience.  It can be an open window in a stuffy room filled with our regrets.  No one is or will ever be perfect.  This does not need to keep us from trying.

I am grateful for the opportunity to bring the tools I have acquired and those I want to know more about, to learn alongside women in very different life circumstances than I. Together we delve into the living study of what it means to be a growing, thriving human being on an aching planet. The criminal justice system is one place thirsting for our attention. Where are you shining your love today? Are you waiting to be perfect before you offer a helping hand? Our hearts, our hands can heal, just the way they are.  Let us offer them to each other in solidarity, in vulnerability, and in love.

Wildly, in love

1)Dinner

Sometimes you look

Like a perfect prince

Your pony tail swish

Hooked nose, broad chin

And sweeping mouth

Sometimes you look

Like an alien spaceship

Eyes folding down in on themselves

Your chide, robotic grin

The weather patterns of your face

Are mine and mine alone

As I gaze at you from

My secret heart

Across the table

2)

My blessed beloved prince

I wrestle you in dreams

Kneading you like bread

Waiting for you to rise

In moments I see clearly

And can separate the two

The man from the God

In you

You rise within me

Tempting flesh

Trembling I wait

Within my cove

Delight, when you unfold me

And come with me, inside

Surprising me with sweet and savory caress

Ecstasy that knows no bounds

Perhaps it was undeserved

The way I opened wide

Perhaps you waited for my wings to spread

So you could take my gold

(And keep your secret)

Precious fingers of man

You know not my invisible heart

And yet you pierce me

A million times

Without saying a word.

Every time you look at me

I offer you my golden medallion

Now I find myself permanently waiting

An open book you refuse to read

I confuse the two, Man and God

I stuff him into you, or try

To call him forth from glimpses glittering

Beneath wide cheeks

The ones that make me dream and quiver

Forever, how I love you.

God housed you

In my eyes

For a moment

A house of flesh and bone

I could love for a short while

An idol, a puppet

Waxed and waned as in a dream

3)

When all the world

Elicits this impossible sweetness

Why try to squeeze it from from human lips and eyes?

Oh strained delight of ages

Oh patient sage-like knowing

Beyond desire

I wait for you

To crown me with your wisdom

Once and for all.

hafiz inspired

who here longs to hold the key

who begs infinity

who laughs and knocks on her door all day?

right here, right now.

in the middle

of this bar fight

intoxicated on moonshine

the real kind

yes, drunk in the timeless grass of eternity

on the dark side of the road.

I found you there,

beloved, writing my hands

tickling my hair

holding me so close, I could hardly distinguish you

from myself

poem

who pretends to hold the key

who begs God

who laughs and knocks at the door each day

right here, right now.

in the middle of this bar fight

intoxicated on moonshine

the real kind

drunk in the timeless grass on the dark side of the road

I found you there,

beloved, writing my hands.

I saw you in my innocent, human prince

I love him always

please

allow in this love

as my gift to you,

heal your broken mind

Let sunlight blossom in your fertile, pregnant heart

As you offer your body to the flowing light

of my strong love

Healing all you touch

Simply like sunlight

Humbly like breathing

My beloved child

You gave up your art to find me

You gave up your games to live with me

you made me your central sun and you made sacrifices

on my behalf

solemn and between fences

Here in the meadow you found me

playing with your hair and whispering sweet nothings

just like you want me to forever

safe and sound, cradled, held

my darling child how i adore you

how I hold you dear

so close, so tight

how i am always clothing you in noble robes

if only you would pay more attention to me and forgive all the small infractions and misgivings

meaningless train now sunken ships

I inspire you to grow in that rubble

don't forget me child

i am here, in your pen

Bats -written March 2011

Bats

March 10, 2011 at 9:05am

My stories die today

No longer can I blame

Another for the sorrow that is

Clotted up

And caked in caves concealed from light

I have crawled down deep inside

Unwittingly at first

For at first the path had been clear and

I had smelled

The mighty Ocean’s calm breath

And tasted her promises as truth

How easily and gaily did I dance toward that Ocean then!

I danced for many days and nights

Through many seasons, planting and harvesting steadily

Cold winters came and threatened to freeze

My memory, but I would not forget her waters

And then it was time

I left all the things I could carry behind

And set off alone into the darkness

I traveled by night for protection

From the ones who wouldn’t understand

And for a while

I felt joyful

When creatures big or small came to me asking for favors

I gave them whatever bread I had and lived off of my laughter

I’m not sure when the hunger began

I only know that it surprised

And confused me

I sat down then to think

The trees that once comforted me hissed at me I felt

Startled

I looked around and

Couldn’t find the path I almost

Wished for the things I had left behind for the

Timely winters, and the dry, dry land

And then I heard the voice of what I already knew

And had forgotten

I looked up to see the Ocean

I looked up to see the Ocean

Rising fast against the sky

A shriek

So shrill from within me came, and I wished to run

But found my body frozen, my will numb

I looked down to find my feet

And found them bound and painful

Buried beneath the mud of my ancestors

I looked up

To find my hands raised in fists

So tightly clenched I could no longer use them!

What stories did pass through my mind then

Words of every color shape and size

Flying as bats fly from a cave only to hit against a glass

And fall back inside again

They echoed like that for some time

And I was afraid it would never stop

The water swelled up, high and mighty

The sounds of the forest were absorbed into it as it rose

Neither the sun nor moon could shine through it and

All the forest was cast in its shadow

As it fell

I pushed beneath it and pressed my belly to the sand

Hush said the water

Hush said the sand

And it was silent at the bottom of the Ocean

I live at the bottom of the Ocean

This sand is the fertile soil of my mind

Where senseless seeds were sown and have grown

Into stubborn weeds, weeds turned into bats taking flight

I have tried to swat them and they have returned enraged

And so, surrendering I say

Bring before me

All flying things

All black and vile things

And let them loose into this night

Though they echo in the caverns of my mind

They are not me

They are not mine