 I’ve been so lazy and unmotivated to post on Instagram, overwhelmed by the infinite photos of others and even of those in my own phone. However, while running into some emotional battles with 5-year-old Geo as we adjust to our new family dynamic with Baby Delphi (he totally loves her but is dealing with the fact that he’s no longer the center of our attention), I went into my feed and scrolled all the way to the bottom, back when my little Geo was a baby. In tears I looked through all the photos and videos and read my captions. There was so much positivity and soulfulness in them. Why have I lost the motivation to literally take five minutes to write a few sentences and share a memorable photo? Have five years of my adult life in my thirties made me jaded? I used to even include hashtags, but stopped when I began reading about child trafficking... that’s when it started to change. Not like I was oblivious to the darkness in the world before, but the things I’ve discovered about the exploitation and abuse of children shattered what faith I had in humanity’s inherent goodness; more so than the atrocities of war or poverty, of which I was painfully aware since my own childhood. Despite my reluctance to include the vulnerable and private colors of my life on the internet canvas, if I hadn’t posted all those photos of Geo as a baby and toddler, I wouldn’t have those accessible snippets of memories now - comforting me in a moment of panic because my once-tiny-baby is now a grown boy with big feelings... still just as much in need of affection, security, reassurance, playtime, being seen and heard, positively disciplined (when I don't succumb to the urge to yell), cuddled, held, etc. Sure the photos are in my digital backup files and some I’ve printed, gifted, framed, etc, and I did make a photo book of Geo’s first year that we’ll always treasure - but the Instagram feed that those words and images comprise is something I treasure as well.  Let’s see if this instinct sticks and I start posting more often. It’s so great to interact with friends too, and keeping my account private helps my paranoia about internet predators. Our children are so precious and divine. Of course we want to share their milestones and magical everyday moments. There’s so much of the past few years with Geo that I haven’t shared, and while it’s not about sharing it to prove it happened, it is about documenting a unique and special journey, and inviting people I care about to witness it. A new positivity and soulfulness needs to rise within me, it cannot be reclaimed from the past. I’ll start with gratitude for two healthy pregnancies and births of my children, a wonderful man who loves us, our families who support us, and the gorgeous and relatively safe location where we live. Uncountable blessings despite various struggles. Perspective. Empathy. And visualizing a safer and healthier world for us all to share...  Give my often-ignored but perhaps making-a-comback Instagram a follow: https://www.instagram.com/nikagram/
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 When it comes to thinking about our world (almost all day every day for me), why am I so dumbfounded by my own emotion that I can only think of paragraphs to post on facebook? I seem to only go as far as composing a superficial woe-begotten mini-rant, asking rhetorical questions and rehashing sentimental platitudes. Perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on myself with this observation. Paragraphs are better than nothing. Or are they just babble? Emotional purging for the sake of not much else. So many of us think and speak and write of how we fear the world in which we're raising our children. Fear it and question it and pray for it and... dread it. It's like we just dread the future, how much more horrific it can get, the way it seems to be going. Many of us pray and write hopeful things. And take hopeful actions. And get things done and change the world and save lives and create inventions and discoveries. I do have faith in us. But... but but but. Something's missing. Something's terribly wrong. I know it is, because I used to think I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders needlessly - and now I think I do it with no other choice. I suppose that's because I'm a mother now, and I feel like I just can't let myself off the hook. I feel as if a buried speck of knowledge and ability lies somewhere within me that I am not allowing to surface. If I don't light the way into that abyss with my own feelings and emotion, how will I ever unearth it? My old philosophy of living my joy is exactly that - it's old. I don't feel pure joy anymore in this world except when I'm with my son... And that isn't fair to him. I must not use him as my therapeutic solace. I wish to build a world for him where real joy is possible - not at the expense of barbaric wars and wasted resources. No, I can't live with all this blood on my hands. That of innocent people lost in the name of a fictitious cause... "fighting terror" and all this bullshit. The fight is the terror. The FIGHT. We stick play swords in our kids' hands and let them pretend to stab each other. We buy them plastic guns and let them shoot each other as they run through the park, shouting "I'm gonna kill you!" I know this observation isn't a new one, and it goes right along with my usual status-paragraph complaints. I just want to reaffirm it to myself - to challenge myself to raise my son with perspective, with awareness. To speak to him realistically about the effects of violence. To not instill in him that it is something in our nature. It may have been so in the past, as a means of survival; but it need not be so now. Unfortunately my ideal doesn't sit with the real "now." Sure there are statistics for how less violent and poverty-stricken the world is now than in the past. But that doesn't mean it ISN'T violent and poverty-stricken. And I think it's a shame that it is, considering all of our evolutionary advancements. It's a shame that huge wars are waged for the sake of questionable motives. It's a shame that there are stories and explanations and wool over everyone's eyes. It's a shame that we aren't able to solve our problems. Put as simply as I can - I think it's a damn shame. So I am challenging myself to think differently. Think of what hasn't occurred to me yet. Think of what I've been missing. There isn't really a simple answer. Or is there? Is it just staring me in the face, a quantum degree away? What is real power? Do we possess it? How can we harness it? How can it have any effect? Here are my rhetorical questions again. Well, Yanika. Start thinking. They say that overthinking is useless and even dangerous... I've definitely over-thought before to the point of feeling stagnated, or to taking unnecessary action... But to think differently isn't to think too much. It's literally that - different. It's different. What does that mean? I think it is both forgiving and holding evil accountable at the same time. It's acknowledging what's wrong, not bypassing it with explanations and theories. It's.... Oh I don't know. It's beyond words. It's a simple prayer, it's a rhythmic heartbeat. It's a dying star inside a supermassive black hole inside a supernova birthing a new star. It's truth. And indeed it's out there somewhere. All the way out there, right in here. *points to brain* I hope I can get nearer to it. Create it if I must.  When I was pregnant with Geo, I didn't think much into what I wanted him to "be" or "do." I think most of us women spend our pregnancies simply imagining health and happiness for our child's life, knowing that we will love them unconditionally, and support them in whatever fulfills them. Although, with Geo, I had one recurring thought, and voiced it to certain friends and family once or twice: "He's going to be an acrobat." I don't know why, and it isn't like that was ever a dream of my own. (I dreamt of being an actress and visual artist). But having seen my first Cirque Du Soleil show (Mystere) when I was 7 years old, and then Quidam when I was nine - I remember the heart-opening, magical effect of seeing human bodies fly and whirl through the air. I didn't know what the feeling was back then, but I believe that my heart speeding up and skipping beats and launching into my throat were all sensations of the heart chakra/energy center blasting open. The synthesis of the music, staging, costuming, lighting, etc with the indescribably beautiful movement of the performers in the mystical big-top was not only mesmerizing - it was spiritually transcendent. Like a phantasmagorical, super-colorful, multi-sensory, multi-dimensional initiation into a thought-form beyond the everyday processes to which we are accustomed. After an experience of initiation, there is an integration period in which an individual might go through challenging moments - due to latent concepts, memories, desires, or sensations coming to the surface. They are there to be acknowledged and learned from. They reveal aspects of the true self. They bring growth and strength, and if surrendered to, they can open portals to further initiation; into endless truths and wonders. Life (perhaps eternally) is one initiation after another. We are constantly evolving. At Quidam, my mother bought me the program booklet. I repeatedly stared at the faces of the acrobats and felt an obsessive admiration. I made a program of my own with drawings of each figurine in my collection of small toys. They comprised an epic choir/performance troupe of which I was the director, and I modeled their square-shaped "headshots" on the Cirque ones. Having been Russian-born in Odessa, Ukraine, I felt connected to many of the Quidam cast-members who were Russian. I felt the fire of a lifelong yearning for the performing arts being stoked by my remembrance of the show - the spectacle - I had witnessed. Studying dance since the age of 3 (still am!), I was already a campy stage kid, but nothing in the world had affected me the way that show did. I mentioned the integration period after an initiation because looking back, I feel as if my nine-year-old self was somehow aware that I [it] was on a spiritual quest. Deeply in my heart, I am a mystic. One who connects to higher power through creativity and resonance, who finds solace in breath and song, who seeks truth but tries to not let it get trapped in dogma. Back then, at nine, I experienced a couple weeks of what I would now actually describe as depression. I felt a dark dread in the mornings, I felt like crying for no obvious reason, I felt unmotivated. I was sad that my direct experience of Quidam was over. I was sad that I wasn’t in that tent, hearing that music and seeing those acts, and I felt sad that my only link to that magic was my memory. I think that’s why I obsessed so much over the program booklet, leafing through it endlessly and drawing up my own version. I think those couple weeks of a nine-year-old’s depressive funk were my integration period after experiencing one of the most intense and transformative initiations of my life (and there have been, and will be, many). What was I integrating? Ancient dreams of flight? Seemingly intangible career goals as an artist? Visions of my future which I had no way of comprehending at the time? The story-line and characters of the show and their impact on my young self as an immigrant, only-child, daughter of two artists, creative kid with big dreams? Was I able to surrender to those sensations? Those arching truths leaning into my soul’s periphery, hinting to me that I would always love the arts, passionately and recklessly, whimsically and beyond-words-achingly? I would become a theater geek in high school, major in Dramatic Art in college, dance in various companies, spend a year in Egypt engaging in some exhaustively scrupulous soul-searching… and become (and be in a constant state of becoming) a visual and performing artist. Yet, there is something deeper. Beyond the sensation of my own future as an artist, beyond the emotional pull of a bottomless scope of inspiration, beyond the realization that I could do nothing except live and breathe for creativity… I look back now, and think - perhaps, I was sensing, somewhere very subtly, somehow and sometime, that I would raise a child in the arts, and he would learn to fly through the air, and he would open hearts. He would lift his eyelids to reveal the deepest depths of sea and sky, soaring through grids of starlight and bouncing from stratosphere to ether. This would be my little son, or daughter, propelling through the air like a dragonfly and causing wide grins to materialize on the faces of anyone watching… It’s just a vision. A little dream. Albeit a grain of the molecular magic of which we’re made. Nevertheless, a dream. Did I dream it at nine, or did I dream it the other day while experiencing the latest Cirque Du Soleil show to come to Los Angeles, Kurios? I sat there just as sweetly stupefied and exhilarated, squeezing my lover’s shoulder and letting my eyes fill with tears not once, not twice, but three times throughout the show… marveling at every single detail. Whether it was this show, or the one I saw as a child, or any other moment of life which spoke to my soul - I know beneath my intuition’s veil, there is truth in art, and there is truth in being creative. I don’t “think” about what my son will “be,” but I suppose I do think about what I’d love for him to “do…” Be creative. Live with imagination. That’s it.  Often I set ambitious intentions, in a mood of productivity and with an optimistic certainty that I can achieve them. Often I waver in my optimism, or just reorganize my thoughts surrounding the intent. Often I empower myself with a new moon's cleansing and initiating energy, and watch the productivity build towards the full moon and its reaping effulgence; or watch as the wavering seems to take over, out of a necessity within my true self to guide its own motivation and actions authentically. Often I do not "achieve" a particular goal because somewhere along the way, I just let it go. At some point my heart decides otherwise. At many points it hesitates and questions, but in gradually learning the maturity of honesty with oneself, this heart of mine is beginning to allow itself the hesitation where appropriate. It is only personal choice which dictates such appropriateness. Personal choice, and a nebulous cosmic ebb and flow with which my spirit dances. When I align with this mysterious movement, my choices are made in heart-brain coherence; and instead of hesitation and questioning, I observe and participate in the magic of *flow.*
Instead of pouring time and energy into graduate school applications, as I had previously intended two moons ago, I have watched a new idea spring up and take over my attentions. It wasn't actually a new idea, but a new just-do-it approach which allowed me to finally take action instead of just dreaming about it. I have begun to offer a prenatal bellydance class! Seven months pregnant and loving my body, swimming daily, indulging in meditations, yoga and dancing, I feel healthy, alive, vibrant. I encounter challenges - like antsy restlessness during a 100 degree heat wave caused by solar-flares, and moodiness; although it's fun to blame these complaints on pregnancy (since they've made not infrequent appearances in other points of my life where I really had no excuse). Despite the added challenge of being apart from my child's father, as he must finish his work arrangement in Northern CA before he can move down here to LA (soon, in November, thank goodness!), and the challenge of being self-employed and not generating the energy to encourage my motivation to earn money (wow, that is quite a run-on-sentence/euphemism-for-being-broke) ~ despite despite despite, all these things, I am deeply full of gratitude. I carve a bottomless well within me for the stores of gratitude to be kept, purified by the well-water's molecular structure of love, infinitely deep and reaching zeniths in the multiverse's holographic endlessness, circling back to their beginnings as inhales, resetting at maximum gratitude between breaths, exhaling and looping again to infinitudes and dancing between dimensions forming beautiful arrays of snowflake-like geometries. This is as close as my words can get to describing the specifics of my gratitude. It's a dancing light, a spectrum of vibrations of kindness and appreciation, a pulse and heartbeat of constant thanks, and reverence for existence. I am so grateful for my Mother and Father allowing me to stay in their home, feeding me deliciously and nutritiously, being my best friends. And of course am so grateful for my friends, those supportive hearts which beat their own lives' beautiful dances, and I get to watch as our energies intermingle and coexist upon this dynamic organism of a planet. And the gratitude extends to and includes the man I love, the father of this life growing within me; his deep blue eyes, deep resonant voice, deep spiraling soul. With 500 miles between us, I still feel immediate closeness to his essence. The physical plane flies along in hyperspace with the astral and etheric everything else. We soar amongst it, carrying our hopes and prayers, our goals and dreams, our doubts and fears. And we are cleansed and uplifted at any moment, by our intent. I believe it is our sincere intent - to be strong, to be healthy, to live, to thrive, to contribute, to inspire… which holds the omniscient and inevitable power to heal ourselves, heal our world, uphold and build our consciousness in the direction of what is best for everyone and everything that exists. What is best? Who knows!? Love, truth, beauty (in my opinion, beauty is key)… and for me personally, a beautiful healthy little baby boy born naturally come early December! I am so excited! I have always wanted to become a mother! And with this baby's birth on my mind and in my heart everyday these past months, I have watched my new-moon intentions fluctuate, and my full-moon celebrations build ~ as if the purifying darkness of the Earth's shadow upon the moon, with its empowerment of sewing our seeds and then nurturing them as the light builds, is actually my moment to let go. Let go of the need to chart and plan everything. Allow myself to grow so silent that I begin to hear the pulse of my blood in the river that is my system of veins and arteries, reaching my baby, ever-connected and dancing together, allowing me to hear the messages from my higher self, which wants only health, truth, and beauty. Simplicity. Authenticity. Honesty. Reverence for existence. The health of my growing baby, a healthy birth for him, a healthy life for him! Healthy grandparents and parents for him. Healthy environment and world for him. And on that note, as for world and environment ~ that is, however, a new-moon intention that I will never let go of. It is not even an intention I set during a particular astronomical arrangement, it is ever-present. It is the intention to keep alive and burning my flame of prayer for the peace and health of our world. It does not ebb and flow like my hesitations about whether I'm ready to commit to graduate school or whether I intend finding an apartment close to my parents or a place by the beach… the prayer for the world's healing and improvement is in my every breath. As I carry this baby, I imagine that he can telepathically sense that I am constantly wishing for this, and with his heartbeat added to mine, we are double-prayers, holding double-space, creating a double-vessel into which can flow the rays of light which carry the atomic structure of balance, peace, evolving technologies and consciousness towards understanding of the sacredness of life and the preservation of it. This little baby and I pray everyday, to be inspired by our hearts' true desire, which is to see this world, in this next generation, truly improve itself. In ways we might not even be able to imagine. We do our best imagining all sorts of ways. But just as in any intention-setting process, we may imagine the grandest possibilities, and even declare them as inevitabilities, and still then, release them, like the Sagitarrian arrow from its bow, to the greater forces beyond our comprehension. Perhaps our higher selves indeed do comprehend these forces, harbor them, initiate them and carry them out. Or we stand and observe our faith in both ourselves and a higher force, whether within us or beyond us, one and the same, do the magic of fulfilling our desires in ways even more grand than we had envisioned. After letting go, letting go, letting go… trying to simplify my prayer and my intent so that it is clear - I wish to discern which actions to take, how best to contribute to the world, and how best to step into the role of *mother.* My gratitude wells up within me so fast and hard that it bursts the dam of my eyelids, my tears flood toward my hands. Tears of thanks, for being alive, and having these sensory experiences of soul.  This Leo new moon is drawing from within me a tangle of self-confrontation. Lynx-spirit sits beneath my consciousness, drives me slowly through these dark woods - we see very little for the blur swallowing up my brain. It is a neutral darkness, however, a void from which I can create. Clean slate. But I don't feel clean. Not in thought. Perhaps in physical form and even spirit, but not in thought. Self-judgement never serves. I am not served. Self-blame never serves. I am not served. Self-pity never serves. I am not served. Can pray now - oh almighty flames - to the fire of benevolence I throw my worries. Take them, consume. Allow me to refresh my heart. Before the torturous thoughts multiply too far, please find again the dawn of a good mood, a better stance between the worlds, within my happiness. In the clean, dark, neutral void of moon in newness-phase, these intents I set: Strengthen the heart's desire for and manifestation of the radiant health of my family, starting with my child. Calm the nervous throes of imbalances within my mental, emotional, etheric selves. Download concise knowledge of which actions to take in the direction of my dreams, be it simply sitting and drawing, writing, dancing in my room, planning the birth experience, finding a home for Eric-me-and-baby, opening a studio/family business, applying to graduate school, etc. Anchor my [our/everyone's] prayers for RELIEF in the world. Solidify them within the crystal chambers of Earth Mother. Vibrate them throughout all molecules upon her and around her. Shoot them up into infinitudes where they will be amplified by Angels and carried throughout all time, space, and dimensions. Set them into BEING. Dear dark goddess Moon, I thank you for the choices you've illuminated for me to see, by your previous wholeness in my pragmatic sign of Capricorn, across from the Sun which sat in Cancer, configuring the energy of home. I opened my heart, and continue to, so that blessings may enter and also be emitted. At times, it has not been an easy summer for me, having met with many ideas to let go of, and while I can acknowledge that I've done so mostly with grace, I also acknowledge that it has taken a toll on my soul. I need reinforcements now. I no longer turn to the plant medicine which had so deeply helped me in times past. I turn to the whole glory of all nature, all living things, all breath and elements. I turn to my own heart. I turn and turn and turn, to be still. The child within me turns as well, and together, our hearts beat these intentions into being. With Jupiter also being in Leo, only one degree away from New Moon, may these intentions be blessed with the EXPANSION so beautifully empowered by that magical planet. "The Quest Degree (degree after) of the new Moon is Leo 5: Rock Formations Towering Over A Deep Canyon. We may be pushed to jump into the void, to take a big step, a big risk, or to figure out where we may have painted ourselves into a corner." ~ from Lynda Hill's Sabian Symbols  Taken at Moab, on way back from Colorado with my Eric. April, 2014 I open myself to this quest. May I either take the big step to begin applying for graduate school, if my intent [to download concise knowledge of action to take in direction of my dreams] is legitimate, true in my heart, and aligned with my destiny. Or may I understand where I might have put myself in a corner. i.e., is a "corner" something like only 10% chance of being accepted, then the task of getting funding, then the task of doing all the grad work while raising a child, then the task of, then the task of, etc etc, but wouldn't it be worth it, if it is truly in my heart? What will be my concentration of study and research? What will be the ultimate outcome and career move? Shall I also beseech the beautiful New Moon goddess for this information? Can it formulate better within me? The idea is the department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. You sort of create your own concentration. Here is the brainstorm I have thus far: Place of origin - diaspora - community Imprint - inner world - magnetizing to interests Mysticism - folkdance - "belly"dance unveiled as birth dance Psychological 'need' for expression - art and poetry as pulse Undefined instinctual leanings - psychosis Visual Art - Russian language and heritage - "gypsy" Becoming what one imagines And much more, but trying to keep it simple... yeah right! Please oh magic Moon add these questions of mine to your powerful void beyond our earthly comprehension. Help me to stir their vibrations within my soul and understand if I must leap, or if I must retreat - and work on the mysteries within my own realms, without branching out into academia ? Further thinking on this question, I'd like to incude a bit more from Lynda Hill regarding the Quest degree of this New Moon. I often resonate with Sabian Astrology, and the "Quest" degree is of interest because it is directly what we are heading into: "Keywords [for Leo 5: Rock Formations Towering Over A Deep Canyon]: Old structures and deep hazards. The choice: taking chances or standing still. Walking very close to the edge. Extreme sports. Risk taking. New takes on old situations. Additions to things long established. Masada.* Mountains. Valleys and gorges. Fortifications. Isolation. The grandeur of nature. The forces of evolution. Rock. Geology. Layers of permanence. Landscapes. Canyons. Vertigo. No going back. Stability behind - the unknown in front. Great heights. Monuments. The Caution: Painting oneself into a corner. Not being able to retrace one’s steps. Instability. Erosion. Jumping into the void without a safety net. Cracks appearing. Doing a “Geronimo.” Being right on the edge. Feeling like life is impossibly hard." I accept the caution of feeling life is hard… I summon all my strength so as not to give in to this tempting self-wallowing. I do not wish to even think this way in regards to the people I know are suffering in the world. Of course life is "hard' for them. "Impossibly" so. And yet, I would bet anyone that you can find open, loving, tender hearts in any war-torn region upon the Earth. You can find beautiful smiles, selfless acts, honest expressions. Perhaps even the ugliest of crimes which I judge as wrong and unfair, are merely honest expressions. Honest expressions of, unfortunately, the extreme imbalance in our world. I've spent the previous couple blog entries complaining of how our spirituality is not enough to lift up the injustices… and I am still sitting with this discomfort, this yearning for something deeper and greater than what we've so far "figured out." But I also know that I must continue to soften my heart, even in the face of the fear I feel regarding horrific things that are happening. They've always been happening, just with all our social media and immediate information these days, they are much more in our face. We must rise to the occasion of being able to see it, digest it, and do something about it. How exactly will a Masters degree in "World Arts and Cultures" help me to do something about it? That is my deepest question for this New Moon's loving darkness. As a child grows within me (five and a half months along at this point), I grow each day, with each heartbeat. I dedicate each breath to my own understanding of how to best serve the world, so that my son may grow up respecting it, thriving within it, and contributing to its wonder.  Image from www.veredgo.com * Masada - an ancient fortification in Israel, atop a rock plateau. I send my prayers there, along with the prayers of billions of our human hearts, wishing for RELIEF for the conflict in Gaza, which of course is a distance away from this landmark (one of Israel's top tourist destinations), but close enough to feel the Weight of our hearts' efforts. I mean, look at all the open expansive space! It can hold our kindness, our love, our truth, not to mention the actual humans who can't figure out how to share geographically abundant territory! There is room for us all, without the need to slaughter each other! I know there are conflicts happening elsewhere. Gaza is hot on our American news ticket, but represents an ancient and fundamental rift in our civilization's entire essence. I hope that with the amount of healing energy being emitted from truth-seeking, peace-loving hearts - all intense, unjust, unstable, deadly conflicts and miscommunications can be brought to resolution. My perhaps-naive little prayer on this dark new moon night, as the lion roars in the recessed cave of our conscience, is that we may know what to do, what action to take, what words to speak, what energy to transmit. May the vibration be raised to such a degree that the low frequencies of disaster abate. Rrrroar!!! Stand off!!!
My heart now feels purified by this cathartic process of writing all these words, per the beginning of this post, my mention of feeling unclean in thought due to self-judgement… self-blame - no more! I declare my heart pure. A child grows within me. I have a new gift, of a Mother's power. I say, stand off! Low vibes of nastiness and ignorance, stand off! Oh Moon above us, you must have observed so much by now, with your ongoing orbit, seeing the same shit down here centuries after centuries. Please clue us in, what can we do differently? Please help us raise our consciousness. I call to you, and to your celestial cohorts, infinite realms of guides available to us if we only reach out and call… I call. Hear me, for the sake of my growing child yet to be born into this spinning theater. For the sake of the children born not long before him. And for those born soon after. For us all. Born. To Live! Plant a seed in my soul. I've been tending the soil and preparing the ground. I've been nurturing the matter and fostering the spirit. Anchored in the Earth, I open my entire heart, brain, nervous system and electromagnetic torus field. I feel plasma love fill me from infinite galaxies in infinite universes. I feel the dirt and greenery of my planet, I long for its waters, the smell of its seas, the blues of its skies and the sweetness of its fruits. I also long for the depth of starry space. And I know true love. So I am a very fortunate human being. I imagine that anyone reading these words is able to receive this energy, in this moment, whoooosh, a bunch o' love!
I summon the deepest truth from within me. In the room I've sat so much and prayed and yearned, I sit now again and see yet another angle of the infinite facets of spirit… I realize any outward reaching of mine has always actually been just reaching within, even when not realizing that is the only "place" to find peace, answers, solutions, ideas, comfort. With my great fortune of love in life, I know well what it is to find peace and comfort "outside" oneself - for it's just so close and so ready, so reliable - all the people (and plants and animals!) who love, who give, who ask nothing in return, and who breathe through a smile. Yet I also know what it is to seek truth within, deep deep within. Even when not intending to do so, sometimes just riding along and plummeting towards a sort of transcendence. Stepping upon prismatic puddles of the rainbow oil of life lived for love. Existing to love. To speak of beauty and seek it everywhere. To know there is no longer a need for seeking. This seed is one of a tinkling truth which silently subtly sat straight by me all the while. Turning to look again, turning to wonder once more, yep, all clear, at last - for a glimpse again, of that "sort of" transcendence. It holds all the love that cannot be held. With that life-force, I seal this light-wave, onto every nerve-center onto every strand of DNA into every membrane, nucleus, neutrino - everything which comprises my body and soul, my world, my people, my land, none of it "mine," but all of it within me - and pray. Here I pray. Deep within the kingdom of goddess god goodness good within the deep of me, reflected by pristine mirrors (with a scratch here and there) but quite lucid nonetheless… I pray for true presence. Moments, in which to serve. Give light. Community. Peace. What we truly need. Slippery thoughts meander not through these inspired halls of cell walls and pulsing blood. With this aliveness, I pray for my Mother, my Father, my every Relative and every Friend, my every Guide and every Angel. I count an uncountable amount of blessings. I give thanks with every breath in, and I release with every breath out. I witness beautiful music in my headphones and my heart swells with warmth at seeing the simple sight of my cat sleeping at my feet. I hold what needs to be held. And I let go of everything else. What needs holding? This seed being nurtured. This seed of a gift to the world. From my family. For my family. A seed which can absolve all doubts and remind me to twist out of darkness and summon the light, which is constant. To give thanks for that dark dark womb, without which the gift could not sprout. And to stretch calmly towards that light, as it is in my nature to do so. To exist. That, I already do. Please, my inner reflection of universal light energy and spirit of a mighty flame of kindness, please help me. I call out to the angels. Please help me remember what is mine to do. So I can dance and sing and show you too. To water my planted little seed, I breathe deeply right now and release the doubts of the previous weeks. Release the congestion of overworked thought. Release the buzz of other humans milling about. Hold compassion. Hold a new model of thinking, or, I do not "hold" it - but allow for it. Like my cousin Russell has said, only when you accept what you have, are you open to receive anything. I accept. On behalf of us all. May our beautiful world grow in love and consciousness. Creating a slideshow for a table presentation, I was amused at how iPhoto combined my images. A journey from one dimension of expression to another... drawing on paper to editing digitally to dancing to praying to celebrating... light to shadow to form to weightlessness to truth to reflection to love.               
It's nearing, I can feel it. Will be in the desert to watch. To feel. To heal. Pour my fears and worries into a pitcher to empty. Plant the seeds of my intentions into the fertile soil of my heart, activated by the celestial realms, suddenly so much closer to us, and we to them.
Endless gratitude. Awareness of the elegance of being. The sumptuous sweetness of every breath. Life. Love. The day is as gray as possible. Grayer, even. So much so that one can feel a depressive mood hanging in the air, like an awkward stillness between strangers in an elevator. Like the nervousness that hangs between individuals when they are trying too hard to make conversation. Or, like the sullen clouds, simply low and ready to burst with rain. Ready to cry.
Suddenly, sun. Its warmth and gentle yellowness caress my cheeks. The clouds having parted for just a short moment, I've soaked in an ounce of joy. And then, back to gray. It used to be that overcast days didn't bother me much. They took the pressure off of having to be cheerful. One could sulk freely on an "ugly" day. That novel idea alone caused me to think the grayness not at all ugly, but relaxing. Soothing even. And yet. Now. I hunger for sunshine. As if unconsciously realizing that its preciousness is eventually doomed, destroyed. Millions of years hence, perhaps. Still, enough to render it mortal, just like us. And that just makes it easier to resent, easier to love, easier to wallow in, joyfully. I'm not self-disciplined enough, but my rage, strength and power are indisputable. A not-yet-errupted sensation, I am dark and whimsical, difficult to categorize, and smelling faintly of old-worldism and the kind of nostalgia for lost childhood that tortures and haunts one's soul till the very end... It's hard for me to write, honestly. Being bare, and detailed with the bareness, even harder. This heart has seen many blurred nights. Memory is mischievous in its hold on me, I wonder at my own happenings like at a detached fictional character's. I dream in bold colors that have no words in any language to describe them. Flat expanses and also, ravines and caves. Monstrous scrapers (buildings) and endless hallways, wooden doors, their knobs, silent slow-motion traffic, territorial characters claiming their stock in my tangle of brain and soul, sleeping deeply all alone. If I could shed my love onto you - crisply, undeniably - I'd pour all of it. Just the love of words alone, the love of books and games, secrets, thrones, demigods and whispers. Everything. All at once. The deep-hidden frosted princess, the sullen girl, the muse. Moments matter not. She encompasses all time and space, all dimension and reality. She is a question, and her own answer never ceases, never tells, never consummates the pondering. On and on and on, she thinks. Beauty, things of beauty, encircle and inspire her. But on and on, she lives and breathes harmonic flutters, bird-wing and sunlit horizon, senselessness, whimsy, love's trajectory, engaging and endless.  Elena Lentini, amazing dancer.
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