This is a collection of writings by Rosie DeAngelo. Some are featured in work, courses, and performances, others are just raw ideas to measure the passing of time and the alchemy of lived experiences. My hope is that you find some meaning somewhere on this page that you can take home with you.

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February 29, 2024

the search for sanctuary

When I was in high school, my mom had a pet canary. We went away for vacation and left him with a neighbor for the week. A few days after we got him back, he dropped dead. While he really seemed fine before we left, the vet explained that birds will hide illness, pain, or distress until it’s so severe that it’s already killed them. He hypothesized that maybe the neighbor’s cat scared him and he put on a brave face until he was distanced from the threat. Or, he might have been sick for a while and was hiding it really well. As a prey species that’s low on the food chain, birds know the dangers of expressing any vulnerabilities, and will wait until they’re in a safe environment to indicate they are not well.

That story always stuck with me. The way our pet bird internalized his suffering, and kept his composure until he felt safe being honest about it.

In college I’d only get sick on spring/summer/winter breaks, and I wondered if this inconvenient timing was my nervous system doing the same thing…deeming the absence of prolonged stress and a busy schedule as a “safe” enough environment to express vulnerability.

Fast forward years later, during covid, and a snake got into my house in Asheville, shedding its skin under my bathtub. My neighbors remarked that he must have felt safe, otherwise he would not have undergone such a vulnerable process there. Even this massive creature may have fallen prey to another animal if he hadn’t found sanctuary in my bathroom.

Last year I happily and willingly went months without a day off from teaching,  until a traumatic incident forced me to take a week off…at which point I slept for 3 days straight, really only waking up long enough to eat. Only when I took pause was I ready to admit how exhausted and overworked I had been the whole time.

We know what it feels like when the other shoe drops, when we are real with ourselves about these maladies and admit to ourselves that we are not okay. But what does it feel like to be in the preceding holding pattern, where you’re looking for that next safe place to let yourself have an honest experience?

Ironically, like our bird learned, if we go too long without finding sanctuary, without reckoning with the turbulence of our feelings, then the stress might kill us anyway. An actual death, maybe, or a spiritual one at the least.

It’s confusing when you break it down, because…are humans a prey species? Not really, though maybe, in certain ways. So what’s happening when a human keeps their pain or sickness to themselves? We must be convinced that it’s a matter of survival. After all, we are the only species that suffers from chronic stress as opposed to acute stress, implying that we live in a nearly constant fight or flight/survival state. Chronic stress is the kind of stress we could endure for prolonged periods of time all while giving the appearance of normalcy. While Yale Medicine describes acute stress as the result of a dramatic physiological and psychological reaction to a specific event…chronic stress is defined as a “consistent sense of feeling pressured and overwhelmed over a long period of time.”

Stress is an evolutionary response to remove us from harmful environments, like predators. If we have evolved to be chronically stressed, we interpret most environments as harmful, and have trouble believing that a different circumstance exists for us. If that’s what we believe, then of course we don’t think it’s safe to appear vulnerable, ever.

Another study comes to mind. While studying “learned helplessness,” researchers administered shocks to caged dogs, and when the cages were eventually opened and the dogs were free to leave, many of the dogs, having previously learned that no escape was possible, made no effort to change their circumstances and remained inside their cages. "The default position of the brain is to assume that stress is not controllable,"  said Steven F. Maier, one of the head researchers on learned helplessness.

So we’re stressed, and perhaps we’ve learned to normalize it. However, I think the deeper, more soulful parts of us are doing all they can to seek relief.

Personally, I find it really difficult to understand that I’m looking for sanctuary until I’ve already found it. Getting out of that deficit and back into the light is often something I’ve stumbled upon, in good company and with unrelenting support. The journey is subconscious, like some deeper knowing within me is dragging me to that next guide post, the X-marks-the-spot in the dirt where I can unravel and truly feel what’s happening, in all its perceived inconveniences, without my survival being at stake. What did our pet bird, me on college break, and that snake in my bathroom all have in common? We all understood that we had come home, by hook or by crook.

Pavlov observed similar behavior in dogs, which led to him to the concept of the “Reflex of Purpose” described here by Bessel van der Kolk in “The Body Keeps the Score”:

“All creatures need a purpose -- they need to organize themselves to make their way in the world, like preparing a shelter for the coming winter, arranging for a mate, building a nest or home, and learning skills to make a living. One of the most devastating effects of trauma is that it often damages that Reflex of Purpose. How do we help people to regain the energy to engage with life and develop themselves to the fullest? Like Darwin, Pavlov understood that the sense of purpose involves both movement and emotions. Emotions propel us into action: positive emotions to appetitive states like food and sex, and negative emotions to defend and protect ourselves (and our offspring). This invites us to focus on emotions and movements, not only as problems to be managed, but also as assets that need to be organized to enhance one's sense of purpose."

We come home to others, which teaches us how to come home to ourselves. And vice versa. The more and more we hone this practice of seeking sanctuary, the more we witness our purpose, our “why.” We weave a deep thread of meaning within the narrative of our lives. We give ourselves permission to be seen in all our vulnerabilities. We shed our armor at the door. We learn to feel safe enough to have an experience, fully, right then and there.

February 21, 2024

technique and meditation

I’d consider myself a pretty analytical person. A technician. I’m drawn to the teachers that deepen our understanding of the “how” of a given style, and leave us with the tools to recreate those conditions on our own. I’ve been told that I notice everything, and I think this has gotten “worse” since I started meditating a few years back. I want to have deep conversations! All the time! I want to understand things, people, what makes us tick. I think it’s a merging of my conscious mind and my subconscious mind: the productive/efficient/goal-oriented/straight-A-student self in communion with the deep-seated romantic who sees love everywhere in everyone. It’s a really difficult scale to balance, and balance has been coming up a lot for me in my teaching voice: “If you’re falling forward in half moon, you need to use muscle/effort to get more of your weight back. It’s like balancing a scale.” Easier said than done, and nearly impossible to do when we are two steps ahead of ourselves and anxiously anticipating knocking over the person next to us.

Okay, working on crafting the metaphor here.

When I was a kid, we would play this game where the teacher would put some mystery weight on one side of a scale, and we had to work together as a class, using 1, 2, 3, and 5-gram pieces to try to balance the other side of the scale to match. Depending on the problem, sometimes it involved adding weight to the mystery side too. As an adult, this sounds really boring and I’m almost embarrassed to say that I found joy in such an activity…but there was this perceived magic in watching a classmate walk up to the front and choose some combination of weights that struck the perfect balance. The solution the rest of us couldn’t see, and then once it was revealed we couldn’t unsee it.

What are the scales we are balancing? One side of any scale isn’t superior to the other, but if one side becomes more powerful then we need to offer more to its counterpart to achieve balance.

Giving and receiving

Effort and grace

Yang and yin

Doing and being

Technique…and meditation.

I just started with this Jungian therapist and something she said last night in our session was that the conscious mind, the “get shit done” part of us is not the whole picture. There’s the unconscious that, as Jung himself says, will control us if we cannot get to know it. It’s irrational and inefficient, but it reveals the secrets that the conscious mind fails to recognize. It’s our capitalist culture’s worst nightmare because it isn’t inherently product-oriented. But it’s the part of us that suddenly sees the way to balance the scales when our conscious thinking mind deems a task to be impossibly overwhelming.

So if studying the technique of something (ballet, yoga, science) is the doing, the yang, the effort, the feeding of the conscious self…meditation is the subsequent receiving of grace, and the place the unconscious mind reveals itself in all its naked truths. I think studying how things work, being analytical, romancing the technique, opens up the potential to find that deeper meditative state. But one cannot live without the other, despite the fact that the alluring presence of one makes it tempting to delete the other entirely.

What do both technique and meditation require? A keen eye. Attention. Focus. What do they both give us? Meaning. One yields more of the other, and so on.

First we study how other things work, and then we get really quiet and discover our own inner workings. That’s the play. But it’s so hard to get to that place. Writer/Jungian analyst/podcaster Erick Godsey was reflecting on a recent 10-day darkness retreat he embarked upon. His mentor throughout the days leading up to his 10 days in darkness and solitude told him that for westerners, the first few days in darkness are dedicated to learning how to relax (!!!) and only after that period can we actually begin to call on our own inner wisdom. (Blog from his 4-day darkness retreat a few years back: https://www.erickgodsey.com/blog/four-days-in-the-dark ) 

Sometimes I sit down to meditate and really I’m just sitting there analyzing. I can’t shed the thinking mind long enough to be with myself. As much as my rational mind wants to label that as a “failed” meditation, I know deep down that it’s just more information and experience. What it probably indicates is that my scales are not balanced. I’m defaulting to the conscious, product-oriented self and starving my magic and unconscious side enough that it’s a challenge to hear it when I get quiet.

Anyway, there’s hope. My friend Tori was sitting behind the camera making fun of me during my employee headshot photoshoot, and I just received them today. There were random fitness props laying just out of frame so once my headshots were done, I wanted to play. It feels good knowing that joy is tucked just below the surface layer of stoicism. There’s hope.

I think we all need more play. In balancing the scales, remember that sometimes you need to add to both sides to keep the balance…so you might need more structure and technique to find your deep, playful, meditative, magical self. Personally, I think I just need to let go more.

February 15, 2024

play along

I was taking someone else’s class last week and I realized that I was not following my own advice that I give to students as a teacher. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s like I didn’t want to even take their suggestions to breathe better? And a different time, I didn’t want to really take the full rest at the end of class. I couldn’t stop the rational/controlling part of my brain from taking over and saying that I had already mastered these circumstances and that I didn’t need to subject myself to this rendition of them. Something like that. It’s weird because it doesn’t make me a master to act like I don’t need deep breaths, or to skip savasana because I theoretically “know” it already.

I heard a voice in my head say “come on, play along.”

I wasn’t playing the part of the student, and in the process I was robbing myself of the entire experience and all its potential depth and richness. I wasn’t letting myself BE in the moment, I was acting like I was better than the moment. It got me thinking…was I “bored” in this circumstance? Or was my inability to be present actually just me dissociating?

Boredom isn’t acting superior to your surroundings. It also isn’t mindlessly scrolling social media (that’s dissociating, which doesn’t really lead anywhere). While dissociation is the act of turning your attention away from your immediate environment…boredom is the quiet precursor to immersing yourself more fully in it.

Boredom leads to play. If you leave a kid alone in a room with three random pieces of trash they will MacGyver it into a game. Boredom means that while you’ve perceivably mastered your immediate environment, and you’re aware of it, you seek out the play and find a way to become the student again, as any true master knows how to do.

full video here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3Qqu9fsZOO/?igsh=Z25vNHBnbjRyNHdn

Boredom leads to play. Boredom makes us want to feel something, anything. Maybe not right away, but it leads to a deeper connection to what’s around you. Not every feeling, or every connection, sticks…because after all, play and failure go hand in hand. When we play we fall down. We “fuck up.” Play isn’t about immediate accuracy, it’s about connecting dots that may have stayed disjointed if you hadn’t come along in your quiet boredom. The more connections we give ourselves time to make, the more we question what’s possible, and the bigger that sphere of possibility becomes. But first we have to get bored. Boredom is the pregnant pause before the birth of an action.

Boredom leads to play. And boredom precedes creativity. If you haven’t heard it before, it’s pretty commonly agreed upon that creative people need to give themselves time to be bored before they can really make something that didn’t exist before (ie what it means to create something).

What do you do when you’re on a long plane trip with no wifi, or in a long hold of a yoga posture? You don’t know everything about that pose, or that moment, enough to take yourself out of the moment altogether. So play along. Close your eyes and meditate on the sounds you’re hearing. Look out the window and tell yourself stories about the worlds, the lives, that you’re flying over. Write them down. On your mat, try taking one hand off the ground, or changing your drishti (focusing somewhere else with your eyes, or altering your internal focus). Try giving yourself a hands-on assist, and really receive that feedback. Wait 3 seconds longer to hear what the next pose is in the teacher’s sequence, and see if you can creatively bridge the gap from the pose you’re in to the pose they’re instructing. Put your phone away, literally, but also figuratively.

Don’t dissociate, show up. Be bored long enough to be the catalyst, and to create something inspiring.

This article was cool: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/productivity/boredom-at-work-creativity-neuroscience

February 9, 2024

the inner mastermind

When I was growing up, taking dance classes, there was always a mirror…but I remember intentionally blurring my gaze so that I wouldn’t actually “see” myself. I was so terrified that I wouldn’t like what I saw if I really looked. I hated watching videos of myself performing, I would cry whenever I did. I had an internal experience when I danced that felt, in many ways, satisfying. But what I saw being reflected back at me didn’t measure up to how it felt for me to live it.

I tried to think back to when I started averting my gaze from myself in the mirror. My first competition solo was to Britney Spears’ “Hit me baby one more time” and I remember feeling absolutely electrified the first time I stepped onto stage to perform it at a dance competition in Atlanta. I likely threw all my coaching out the window, and I just felt SO MUCH. I can describe it as nothing less than being utterly, viscerally alive. The way I feel blood coursing through my veins as an adult when I’ve had too much coffee…but at the time, performance was the outlet for that pent up energy. I relished the concept of being seen by other people, and I wanted to show them all of me.

Over time, though, I started perceiving my dancing through an external lens. I saw a video of that first solo. I thought it was terrible, that I was terrible. How could something that felt so full of life translate so poorly onto video? Then began the internal contemplation, one that I was too young to put into words: when I feel good inside, there’s a chance it is reading as objectionably bad or ugly from the outside.

My second solo was riddled with anxiety, self-doubt, and paralysis inside a moving body.

Slowly, over time, I buried that unrefined edge further and further within myself. I rejected myself, and gave others permission to do the same. Then, my inner conquest became “proving myself:” my worth, my value. It looked like a lot of self-deprecation, forcing myself to fit in someone else’s box.

I didn’t know at the time, but those parts I was burying so deep, they were already exactly what I was meant to be. Artists just need encouragement, and practice, to learn to use their voices effectively. To have an impact.

When I was in Paris the summer of 2012, I went to all the museums I was “supposed” to go to. And honestly, I’ve never been a fan of museums. Something about many of them feels so sterile to me, even if the work isn’t. (I know this isn’t fair to say about all museums, so seriously, feel free to suggest some exhibits to me I may be into.) But anyway, I stumbled upon a Tim Burton exhibit while in Paris. He’s American, and the exhibit was originally an NYC thing. Part of me felt like I should be doing PARIS things. But I loved it. So much. Still to this day, I think of it often, because the exhibit talked about him becoming who we now know him as. Throughout adolescence, he was told that he wasn’t good at drawing and should pursue something else. But he grew up with encouragement, and stuck with it, until his style became iconic in its own unparalleled right:

“If you look at children’s drawings, they’re all great. And then at a certain point, even when they’re about 7 or 8 or 9, they go, “Oh, I can’t draw.” Well, yes, you can. I went through that same thing, even when I started to go to CalArts, and a couple of teachers said: “Don’t worry about it. If you like to draw, just draw.” And that just liberated me. My mother wasn’t an artist, but she made these weird owls out of pine cones, or cat needlepoint things. There’s an outlet for everyone, you know?” (from a 2012 NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/movies/tim-burton-at-home-in-his-own-head.html)

Last week in a studio session, I reflected with two dancers about the idea that every truly new idea has to be “bad” at first, because it’s never been done before. How could it be “good” (refined, clear, impactful) if you have no practice with that particular form of expression? It might just seem “bad” because you haven’t gotten to know it yet, and the unfamiliar aspects of it make it feel scary. Often, new fashion trends initially look absolutely chaotic, because our eyes need time to adjust to the unfamiliar cuts of clothing, or we need time learning how to really “wear” these new looks in collaboration with who we are.

Similarly, every child is inherently a young, new idea, a new voice, that just needs practice in order to become.

I wish I could go back and encourage that 7-year-old, Britney Spears soloist to have so, so much fun. I wish I could burn every video there was of her dancing back then, so she wouldn’t get caught up in what other people saw. I wish I could whisk her away from every subsequent award ceremony after a competition performance, so she could measure her worth from within. I would give her time to just get it out, and become who her spirit was begging to become.

I’m 33 now, but I like to think she’s still the mastermind behind what it is I’m building. I’m learning to step aside and let her speak her wisdom.

February 1, 2024

shapeshifting

I took Ali Cramer’s yoga class yesterday, and despite all the complex movement we explored in the hour, my biggest download was in a moment of pause. I was in pigeon, as I have been many times before, and suddenly I could feel the delicacy in the contour of my hands. It sounds like nothing but it was everything. I wasn’t moving my hands, and there was no acute stretch or other sensation there to beg for my attention…but somehow, I still noticed that sweetness louder than anything else. I didn’t have to move my hands into the “right” shape, or inspire any kind of change in my muscles. All I had to do was clear enough space in my mind to notice what was already quietly happening in that part of myself.

Movement is the body in motion, through which change is inherent. Biologically speaking, any perceptible change in our environment awakens the senses in an attempt to seek out any life-threatening entities. On some level, our attention is constantly rerouted towards any new sounds, smells, feelings in the body. So, producing changes in the body through movement is a helpful way to connect with sensations, because it’s much easier to perceive sensations in the presence of change. As an example, consider sound. If someone knocked on your door right now, you’d hear the addition of that new sound in your environment much more clearly than you’re probably hearing the hum of your refrigerator, because that humming sound has been happening for longer without a perceptible change in pitch. But if we can learn to perceive the relatively static parts of our experience with the same acuity (the refrigerator hum, the resting hand in pigeon), we are able to lock into the present moment even when it isn’t inherently stimulating or “active.”

Throughout class, Ali was talking about how the potency of the yoga practice is largely a matter of the subtle body. The way I see it, the layer of the body that we perceive to house “effort” or “doing” is the muscle layer. By activating the muscle layer, we connect with, and control, our physical form. But I think the magic of our work as practitioners of any somatic, meditative practice is in our capacity to learn how to manipulate energy and subtle trajectories inside the body, in a “being: layer below the doing/effort layer. As body therapist Moshe Feldenkrais said, “you can’t do what you want until you know what you’re doing.” Movement helps us to learn what we’re doing. From there, we learn to make an impact beyond the physical.

The work begins as something that’s perceptible in our own experience. A muscle engages that we didn’t even know we had, and suddenly a lightbulb turns on. Wow, a whole part of my body I never knew existed…I wonder what else that part of me has been saying, and needing, all this time. Eventually, this inner work becomes palpable in the space outside of ourselves, through the experience of any witnesses, through anyone we encounter. We hold the potential to be the person that “lights up the room” when they enter it. We learn how to hold space for someone simply with our presence. And just as we have learned to shape-shift the body, now we have the power to shape-shift our own consciousness, or someone else’s perspective. We start to see that the space inside us really is not so different than the space outside us.

Movement, and being embodied (in the true sense of the word), teaches us this. To be embodied is to “be an expression of or give a tangible or visible form to (an idea, quality, or feeling.” It’s not as superficial as knowing we are in a body, but actually going a layer deeper and being the body. Standing on our two feet, but truly standing for something in that gesture. Feeling the weight of our actions as we take them. A merging, a dance, between the doing and the being layers.

Then the real practice begins: we start to perceive consciousness in subtler realms. The organs of perception (eyes, ears, nose, hands, tongue) lead the way. The experience of being sensitive (as in being connected to our five senses) is the gateway to deeper contemplation and self-inquiry. Every feeling we have is our body’s response to those senses. Sometimes we get stuck on loop based on past feelings, and we lose access to the feelings available to us in the present moment. But each time we come online to all the details that we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste in real time, we reclaim another breadcrumb along the path of knowing.

January 27, 2024

the visit/the revisit

I’ve been experiencing a lot of revisits lately. Unintentionally, so maybe it’s a phase I’m in, or maybe it’s just an element of life that’s always there if we’re available to receive it.

I’m rereading Pride and Prejudice and actually understanding the writing style without reading the cliff notes like I did in high school. I rewatched part of Oppenheimer with my parents and noticed a new layer of clever details and beautiful cinematography that I missed the first time. I restarted weekly classes at 100 Grand SoHo, a space I’ve been tied to since I moved to the city 10 years ago. Re-entering this beautiful lofted studio for the first time in years last week brought up a lot of memories and inspired contemplation, but I could see the ways I was bringing additional years of experiences and life to a room that in many ways is unchanged. In these instances of revisiting, it’s more tempting than ever to revert to who we’ve been, the roles we played and the habits we once relied on.

Visiting your childhood home is probably the top instance of this regression taking place. I went to visit my parents for the first time in about a year and a half this past week. It felt different…I was able to more successfully integrate the person I’m becoming in NYC into this environment that past, and less developed, versions of me once resided. I remained present at the site of a past memory. Some things hold true though. I don’t like to be coddled when I’m home, and I do my best to not revert into the roles of “child,” or “dependent,” but I still thoroughly enjoy letting my mom doing my laundry for me (it just feels cleaner when she does it and she folds my underwear into cute little squares--see below). In some ways I actually appreciate this act of kindness more than I ever did before.

Bringing our present selves into an environment we’ve seen before is what mercury retrograde is about, in part. Mercury retrogrades have a bad wrap because of the technological and communication failures that take place…but retrogrades are about going back to a place we’ve been with our current level of experiences and wisdom.

We’re afforded the most potent wisdom and insights, I’ve found, once we take some space from the places, the people, the circumstances that were once the center of our world. When we zoom out and create distance, we literally have a wider perspective and can see things differently or more fully than we could when we were viewing things up close. We can partake in this introspection during retrogrades.

In Katonah yoga, senior teachers often allude to the idea that “the insight is gained inside the repetition” of the actions, postures, practices. By repeating the same move for a set duration of time, we start to notice habits, patterns, subtle details that may have escaped our attention during the first few executions. Every revisit of a movement is a chance to add, or notice, a new layer of texture. It’s a meditation. To hear the subtext in the film. To appreciate the humor in a Jane Austen novel. To establish boundaries with family members. To teach in an old space in a way that is authentically you, more so than you did the time before.

But we have to remain open and available for this process of discovery and rediscovery. A revisit of a thing affords us a new layer, and we can paint that layer any way we choose, but we have to make a choice that’s intentional, meaningful. If you live in NYC, maybe you’ve seen the way that MTA workers slap on a new coat of off-white paint over the poles on the subway platforms periodically. If not, I’ll save you the trouble: they basically just cover up the previous months’ grime with the same ugly color, and they don’t even take care to lay the paint down smoothly. Blanket layers of paint save us time, but cut us off from the nitty gritty life source that is so essential to a life lived well. If we’re exhausted, or low on resources, the quality of the revisit will reflect that.

Both rest, and time, give us the opportunity to remain present inside the revisit. Then comes the wider perspective we’re seeking, the godlike omnipresence that connects us to spirit.

We have to remain present inside the revisit, inside the past memory, or else we fail to integrate all accumulated wisdom and experiences. At that point, we’re actually just covering up the layer of dirt, proof of us having lived through something, in the interest of the concept of renewal. Experiences cannot be erased, that’s not the purpose of the revisit. The purpose is to go deeper.

Two more upcoming revisits for me:

1- 10-day Vipassana silent meditation retreat this May. I went for the first time last May and I’m so excited to see what newness I reveal this year.

2- Nuqui, Colombia Yoga/Surf retreat March 17-24. Read more about this upcoming offering and my reflections here, featuring some old dance content from 2015 when I was there last:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C2S4aU7OEAB/?igsh=MWVya2dvODA2amg5Yg==

January 19, 2023

the inconveniences of experience

I came across a post that delineated circular movement as feminine and linear movement as masculine, and while I joked in last week’s Flow State that maybe that entire line of thinking is inherently linear…I’ve still been thinking about it a lot. The joy of getting lost in dizzying movement. The magic of the scenic route. That sometimes the best things in life aren’t found on the most efficient pathway. That most things require us to get our hands dirty in the slow and steady process.

This line of thinking really only interests me if we consider that all of us possess the masculine and feminine archetypes, and therefore we are each a unique combination of both of these attributes, capable of adjusting the volume knobs for each in a given moment to serve our needs. That’s the perspective I’ll stick with here.

How many times have you heard that one perfect way of framing a concept, and suddenly that elusive something you’ve been chasing for years suddenly makes sense? Something might be explained to us ten times first, and we still aren’t getting it. So much of what we encounter seems to go right through us, in one side and out the other with minimal perceived impact. Meaning, while we know every experience touches us in some way… sometimes the impact is so subtle that we fixate more on what we’ve lost in an experience being over, than what we’ve gained. But the gains add up. Over time, the subtle bits of our experiences that we’ve held on to accumulate, in service of that final “a-ha” moment that seems to appear out of nowhere.

Life is letting the elements permeate, and trusting the parts that resonate to saturate and substantiate us. The rest, we act as a filter or a vent for. It moves through us, out of us. We subconsciously keep the parts that were made for us.

Without meaning to, our experiences, namely how we experience them, become mirrors that show us who we are. Through our experiences we learn meaningful expression of our souls, our spirits. We get it “wrong” tons of times first, of course, which is very inefficient, and very non-linear. Life is inconvenient in that way.

When I imagine this process of a life lived, it’s not a stacking of parts to create a sum total mass. It’s a swirling, curving, floating symphony of parts that somehow lands in perfect harmony, if only for a moment. Much more beautiful in my opinion. But much less predictable and very hard to measure.

The non-linear mind goes with the flow. It trusts the process. It is sensitive and speaks largely from the subconscious. Moving with circles, waves, and spirals can sometimes address catches in the body that linear movement might miss. It’s also really fun.

The linear mind, also essential, establishes a framework of understanding for all of this, or else we lack the follow-through necessary to leaving our mark on the world. The linear mind takes meaningful action in the world. It translates the non-linear into something more digestible that we can reflect upon and share with others. We need the linear mind in order for the non-linear mind to make its mark.

But the linear mind, when running rampant, is a capitalist. It is the part of us that wants to open the oven while something is baking to check the progress, inadvertently letting heat escape and slowing the progression more than we would have if we would have left well enough alone. The linear mind wants to understand how to make someone stop crying so much that they stop listening to the words the person is saying. The linear mind works with theory and resides in the thinking mind so well that it sometimes negates the nitty gritty of practice, and being present.

Anyway, my point is that none of this is convenient. The human experience does not fit in a nice neat box, and striking a balance is a never-ending practice. I’ve personally found a lot of value in extracting the meaning from whatever the circumstances become, and trusting that I’m always exactly where I’m meant to be. That story-weaving tendency is my trusting, non-linear side working in collaboration with my linear side, and its desire to understand. However, I often catch myself trying to get ahead…it feels like my linear mind trying to control my non-linear mind. We can’t outsmart life, and I don’t think there’s such a thing as winning it. But it feels tempting to only use the magic of the non-linear to serve the little capitalist linear part of us, doesn’t it?

But what if we can train the linear parts of us to work in service of the non-linear?

I’m on board.

January 12, 2024

coming home

There’s an irony to pulling yourself out of what you’re doing so that you can prepare and over-prepare for a place outside of the present. So that you can do a better job whenever that future “present” arrives. It’s sort of funny, because nothing can color the present moment the same way as simply learning the art of being present. Something so essential shouldn’t need to be thought of as an art form. Or maybe we need to realize that art is as essential to living a good life as anything else. That really, it’s impossible to live a full life that isn’t filled with art. We work at the morning routines, the healthy eating habits, the perfectly crafted website, or dating profile, or apartment. Isn’t that art? Aren’t we creating a world with our voices every step of the way? And aren’t we lost without it?

By making believe we don’t have time for art, everything changes. At that point it’s so easy to forget what it’s all about. And then it feels impossible to make any decision about anything. No wonder I could deliberate over what to eat for so long that I’m not even sure I’m hungry anymore.

I need to satisfy one soul craving per day. At least. Do something my instincts tell me is right. Give my intuition a chance to stretch her legs. It’s like reaching out to make plans and the person always says no. Eventually, you stop asking. Same with our sweet intuition. Enough times if she asks to be heard and instead she’s ignored, she’ll stop speaking up. Not forever, but for a time.

Every day I need to listen in and see what she’s trying to tell me because that’s the nectar of life. That’s the whole point.  The intuition guides us home to ourselves if we let it, like a quiet but potent homing device. She’s hiding just under the surface in moments of “boredom.” She’s nourished by affirmation. And since she is the wisest thing we’ve got to our name, affirmation shouldn’t be hard to come by so long as we’re moving through life authentically.

Body is always in the present, while the mind is what time travels. Feeling sensations in this body is an art form. Owning feelings. Surrendering to the beating of your own heart, beat to beat, moment to moment. Showing up fully, all the way, to meet whatever is there.

I set a few 2024 core intentions this past Wednesday as a part of a New Moon Circle. I thought I’d share them here:

i will commit to myself and my personal trajectory, with softness and sensitivity. only i know the truth of where i am meant to end up, others can only speculate. my voice is the loudest in my journey, i will calibrate all else accordingly.

i am ready and available for the most essential gathering of parts to meet the whole of myself. i welcome the scattered breadcrumbs discovered along the journey, and trust that they have all made me.

January 5, 2024

im·bue

/imˈbyo͞o/   verb

inspire or permeate with (a feeling or quality)

I’ve been reading a sci-fi/fantasy series, Empyrean by Rebecca Yarros, where each character has unique magical powers. More striking than the powers are the verbs used to describe them: siphon, channel, wield, imbue, raise. Like we absorb anything we spend a lot of time around, I’ve been using these verbs conversationally. It feels natural, which makes me wonder if, in the absence of throwing lightning or reading minds, we can actually move the more subtle energies around us and affect the world the same way a magical power would. It certainly seems like it. 

And maybe, artists write books and give magic a name, so that the indescribable things we’ve experienced in real life make more sense to other people. (Plus, it’s easier to get lost in a book when it feels like it’s not about you, when you’re just a visitor in a fictional world with made up rules.) But still, something about it all feels familiar, like deja vu.

I know that energetic residue can be passed on and left in the people around us…I’ve seen it and felt it. Subtle magic infused in the fabric of our being. I’ve also realized that energetic residue can build up in physical spaces, not just in people. While some spaces feel like blank canvases every time you enter them, it’s as if others are imbued with the dense history of every past occurrence to have taken place there.

There’s something attractive, addicting, about how we can channel this past energy in the context of the present moment, especially in New York City. But sometimes it leaves me feeling more haunted than anything. Possessed. A manipulated witness, out of control and along for the ride. We become powerless when faced with such entities. It can be anxiety-inducing, which makes me wonder if I understand what anxiety is, and if the anxiety is the problem that needs changing…or if I am. 

In movies, ghosts linger among the living if they have unfinished business. While we can’t change the past, it also feels challenging to harness the autonomy that’s necessary to step out of these past narratives and move on to make new stories. And that’s what needs to happen for these haunts to dissolve, for us to stop running around in circles, exhausting ourselves in the romance of the stories we tell ourselves. I don’t know if a place, or a person, can ever be wiped clean of their past entirely, not without removing their essence. Our stories have become so integral to us that it’s as if one cannot exist without the other. But something, on some level, has to change if we want to stop repeating the past.

I think when past stories find resolution, live out their purpose, these subtle ghosts stop lingering.

I don’t know if I’m always strong enough to be the catalyst for change when I’m up against the subtle magic I’ve encountered in this world…the dark madness of New York City, the complexities of love, all the unspoken, and ineffable, and sometimes harmful, life forces that ultimately make life worth living. But at least I can recognize the impact these imbued entities have had, and continue to have, on me. I can be vulnerable, human. I can aim to make impactful changes within myself. I can protect, insulate, myself in as many ways as I can fathom, while remaining open for grace to rain down from unknown sources. I cannot wield lightning, but certainly there’s something in me that’s learned how to fight the fights worth fighting.

In the fitness industry, the word “bulletproof” has become commonplace. “Bulletproofing” the knees to prevent injury. Bulletproof coffee. What does it mean to be bulletproof? The colloquial definition says that if we consider ourselves to be bulletproof, we are “safe from failure.” Protected. Insulated. In the Empyrean series, the characters learn to raise “wards” (shout out to Linzey Rice for filling in the blank I was drawing on that verb), magic shields of sorts, to protect themselves from dark magic and ill will. The protagonists, and antagonists, all aim to become bulletproof. Obviously what we need in our world to be “safe from failure” might look entirely different, but we, too, aim to become bulletproof. To feel safe from failure, safe from harm. Really, just safe.

What magic are you channeling this year? How do you aim to be bulletproof? What wards will you raise to stay true to yourself?

December 29, 2023

defining intentions

“When you focus with soul-eyes, you will see home in many, many places.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

Each of us is a unique composite of many various traits. There are things each of us must do in order to get out of our own way…and there are things we are “meant” to do, things that are a logical progression of our past experiences and the sum total of our present selves. We might not even realize our calling until we clear enough of the debris that prevents us from seeing the truth.

Nikki Costello, senior Iyengar yoga instructor and personal mentor, describes the “Guru,” or spiritual teacher, as being incarnate in the body. Fostering a sustainable connection with this Guru requires a full recognition and understanding of the innate wisdom, consciousness, and bliss that lies within us, so that we can surrender to our inner compass. We manifest what we need when our attention and our intention align with our actions. We do this by honoring our own innate wisdom.

By shaping personal intentions, we are calling on this inner wisdom. We are admitting to our own profound knowing of this path. We are placing ourselves in effective relationship to everything around us: people, places, events, energies.

Various studies have proven that in order to bring your goals into action, one of the most effective tactics is putting them into writing. This is a much more powerful practice than just imagining your intentions, or saying them silently to yourself. Think about this as not only a promise to yourself that can anchor you on difficult days, but also as a constant reminder of the “why” in doing this work.

While we may know deep down what’s best for ourselves, we must thin the veils between our innate consciousness and any limiting beliefs, social constructs, or learned behaviors we have accumulated over the span of our lives. Intention setting is the planting of seeds in this lifelong practice.

First, admit where you are.

In order to more effectively discern what to move towards, and ultimately what choices to make in our lives, first we have to turn our awareness inward and witness what’s there: admitting where we are in order to move from that place. I had a college dance professor who was infamous for coining the phrase “deepen where you are before you go to the next.” It never made sense at the time (beyond its implications in movement), but the older I get I continue to revisit this phrase as a way to understand meaningful action. First, we go in. We ground ourselves, construct shields where necessary in order to preserve our truth. In movement, it’s a plié, a bending of the knees to take our weight down through our legs and into the floor, coupled with a recruitment of the core muscles that aim to stabilize and protect us as we move through space. Only once we have accessed that deeper, more substantial layer of ourselves can we understand what’s next in the sequence.

I think of anxiety as a ripping at the seams of where we are and where we once imagined ourselves to be. We’ve pulled ourselves out of the truth of our present circumstances in a desperate attempt to become someone else, be somewhere else. The tension between the two creates an internal friction. If we can first identify and embrace where we are, then we stand in our power and can more accurately assess where to go next without placing unnecessary strain on our present selves (this applies physically and metaphorically).

Any sustainable intention must first take into account where we currently are, or else we are the proverbial Google Maps navigation that is giving you false directions based on a miscalculated location. It’s no use putting in a destination if the app doesn’t understand where we’re starting the navigation from. And it’s no use setting the physical bar high when we are in a place where our bodies are demanding rest, for example.

As you set intentions, reflect on the following questions:

Are you grateful for what you have manifested thus far?

How can you underscore where you are instead of simply building anxiety for where you want to be?

If we come at it from a place of appreciation, then we can alchemize the “punishment” that’s sometimes inherent in personal development “work” into a genuine enthusiasm for growth.

December 19, 2023

new year promises

I hate the idea of New Year’s Resolutions because it gives the impression that we are aiming to become a different person when the clock strikes 12. I do think January is a great time to implement a lasting change, though…my birthday is January 2, and the new year follows a 1-2 month period typically associated with burnout, family stress, and weird eating habits. I can’t bring myself to say “resolution” but I’ve gotten into the habit of making myself a promise each new year. The only stipulation is it has to be the kind of promise that brings me one small step closer to what I want my life to look like when I envision a future. 

Last year I promised myself I’d read more, because I’ve known that for me, reading is calming and grounding like nothing else, but I’ve also seen how easy it is for me to NOT read, not ever. I’d say it went pretty well—I already read 39 books this year (not that you’re asking), which is a lot more than the 2-3 I read the year before. And reading has really informed my teaching and creative practices this year as well.For 2024, my promise to myself is that I’ll choreograph more.

During COVID, choreography and dance looked like a self practice in my home space. It was really valuable, and so healing. It was from that space I created offerings like Embodied Artist and Flow State. I dreamed up film and performance concepts. I learned to love myself. But it’s been nearly impossible to stick to that kind of home, research-oriented practice ever since, though, now that much of my life is existing “live” and in person. I have a daily movement practice, but sometimes I’d rather take an in-studio yoga class and learn from my mentors than lock myself in my apartment and study by myself. But it’s been conflicting because that lockdown-style home practice where so much of my creative, choreography-centric mind lives and thrives.

I really don’t want to add more “to-do”s to my days. If anything, I need to be doing less—my second new year promise is that I’ll take at least one day off per week and I think that’s going to be a lot harder to stick to. (If you look at my schedule and you see that I’m teaching every day that week, can you email me and yell at me? Just kidding.)​

So, I realized that if I am teaching just ONE dance class per week, then I’m working choreography into my schedule much more effortlessly than forcing myself to build the practice from scratch in my home space. I can still have that time in my apartment when it feels right, but it won’t be the only outlet. I’ve put off teaching a weekly open dance class for a long time, and have distanced myself from the NYC dance scene for about two years now…but I’m promising myself I’ll slowly put myself out there again in 2024. It’s really just a matter of converting one weekly yoga class to a dance class. The warm-up will be like a Flow State class, so my non-dancer students could attend the first part of class if they want to. 

Weirdly, I feel really ready to invite this in. And I think that’s the sign of a good “resolution”: it doesn’t feel like a vast departure of what you’ve been doing for the last year(s), but a healthy addendum… an extension, a fortification, of what you’ve already built.

Plus, I admittedly miss that gritty dance studio feeling when your feet have a layer of grime and you’ve got that all-over body soreness that hurts so good. When I imagine what I want my life to be like in the future, it’s got more of that.

What’s your promise to yourself in the new year?

December 13, 2023

perfectly unfinished

We want finality. An arrival at equilibrium where some hypothetical self mastery lives. Zero unread emails. A to-do list full of check marks. A perfectly clean apartment where you even took the trash out again after you swept and mopped and dusted. But this belief that an end exists in our lifetimes will leave us resenting our beautiful transience, and all of the steady, imperfect indicators that we’re alive and breathing. We’ll find ourselves resenting the nitty gritty that makes up a life: we’ll get upset when someone answers our email and puts that “unread” count back from 0 to 1. Some amazing opportunity surfaces but we begrudgingly see it as a reason to start another to-do list in order to make space for it. Not to mention a temporary setback, like an injury, that takes us out of our established rhythm. And in any of these moments where things feel unresolved, uncertain, unfinished, we’ll think back to a time in the past, some time that represents the closest we feel we’ve come to having “figured something out,” and we’ll condemn ourselves for losing ground, for experiencing the consistent daily changes that are part of being alive. We feel incomplete when inherently, we are all perfectly complete as we are. It’s made up, and it’s a trap, a trap I know really well.

We’re chasing this concept of some static and final completeness because that’s where the illusion of control resides. The illusion that there’s some fixed mastery that’s impermeable to the elements, to time and to change. It’s not real, and I know that, but all that knowing does is make me aware of my shortcomings…the distance between me and perfection. The to-do lists keep growing longer and longer until I’m not even sure who I’m in competition with. 20 minute meditations turn into an hour. Financial goals are always just out of reach. Everything I want, some all-encompassing and ineffable state change, is just on the other side of that last thing I promised myself I’d do.

What’s missing in this rationale?

I can see the way things might never feel done until my entire life is done, whenever that is. Does everyone feel that way? Or is it just the city I live in and the lifestyle I subject myself to? 

Maybe we will never be *done*…and the trick is to cultivate gratitude for all the moments in between. Our entire life span is one grand transition from birth to death, and I think the more we can train our minds to appreciate the small transitions, in life, in relationship, in our bodies through movement patterns, then the whole process of being is a place we want to be.

Live a little.

Watch the first minute of this, I thought it was pretty universally sweet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQyVBxABGxw

Similarly, I’ve always had a deep appreciation for the in-between, or the “almost” moments in movement. How can it all be worthy of a photo, not just the polished yoga pose, or the highest leg, or the biggest smile? How can we grow accustomed to seeing the beauty in the details so that everything appears complete just as it is? That way, an hour-long movement practice is an hour-long meditation, with no gaps while we wait for the parts that matter, because it all does.

So, gratitude. During covid I was really good about writing down 10 things every day that I was grateful for, and WHY. The “why” is kind of the important part, because it teaches us to recognize that there is value in everything. It trains us over time to see the world differently. 

You’re not allowed any repeats. 

I’ve gotten out of this daily habit lately, but I’m seeing these recent insights above as a call for me to get back to it. 10 things I’m grateful for, and why, every day. I’m starting today. Join me?

December 5, 2023

engage your core.

Last Saturday’s Flow State session was shaped around the mantra “engage your core,” which, to me, is probably one of the most cringe phrases in the whole world. Something about it just feels synonymous to the mindset that we need to work out in order to earn our Thanksgiving dinner. 

However…the sentiment taken at face value is useful. 

An insight I’ve had recently in my own movement practice is that I could afford to do just that, engage my core, a bit more than I have been, to alleviate the tension in my lower back. I’ve been thinking of my “core” as my central engine, an entity that speaks to the entire body and therefore inspires an integrated change in the extremities, and in the entire structure as a whole. Engaging the core in order to create a cohesive, full-bodied movement feels a lot more valuable to me than statically engaging my core for the sake of proving that I can.

My teacher Nikki Costello offered an inverse way of thinking about the core this week. Throughout the practice, she used the word “core” to refer to the entire torso/trunk. We worked to extend fully through our limbs in order to touch our core with our attention, to affect the core through our efforts. The Iyengar yoga lineage refers to our limbs as the “organs of action.” So, by engaging our organs of action, we became more aware of the core.

Given my own insights, as well as Nikki’s, I’ve been working to develop a new perspective on the phrase “engage your core.” Maybe the core of us is the seed of us, much like a piece of fruit. The most essential part of us that existed before we were touched by our world and our experiences. The origin of the self, from which every other part of us has developed in to what we are now. The thing that is revealed when we peel away the external layers. If we reflect further on the concept of “engaging the core,” maybe the research becomes: how can we meaningfully engage with the most innate parts of ourselves, in a way that allows us to share this truth with the world around us?

In a physical sense, we can think about what the gaga movement language refers to as pika and lena, shortcuts used to describe the many moveable parts near the pelvic floor and abdominals. If we can imagine these proximal areas being made of smaller pieces, as opposed to one singular entity, we can also begin to imagine the ways these small pieces cast subtle lines to the distal extremities. Can the bottom left corner of the abdominal wall affect a change, a spreading, behind the left upper arm and heart? Can the pelvic floor contract in order to lift one foot off the ground and take a lighter step forward into the world? We are using the core to recruit the organs of action.

In a metaphorical sense, consider: what core tenets or beliefs must we adhere to in order to take meaningful action in the world? To communicate our truth to loved ones? To walk away from something that does not align? How can we keep referring back to those core, proximal truths as the world around us tries to steer us from a more distal place? 

As Nikki reminded me, this is also self-referential: while we fortify our relationship with ourselves, at the core, in order to authentically interact with those around us…we also engage with our world in order to remind us of what is most essential at our core.

Sometimes when movement becomes difficult, I’ll cue an exhale. I think the breathing itself is useful…but when we exhale completely, we contract the core as we empty ourselves of air. Mentally, we’re engaging our “core” here as well: reminding ourselves what it’s for, whatever that intention might be, in order to move through the layers of resistance and discomfort with integrity.

Maybe engaging our core is just about testing the limits of our strength. Not just to look good for bikini season, but to develop resilience in a world that isn’t always generous. That way (as I’ve learned in the journey to heal my lower back pain) engaging our core means we’ve always got our own backs… even in times when it feels like no one else does.

November 28, 2023

full body movement 

Trevor Gibbs, my mobility trainer throughout the covid lockdown, emphasizes the importance of making each “drill” a full-body movement. It’s probably the top piece of information I absorbed from the practice. For example, even if we are training the hips through internal/external rotation, having tone in the arms, shoulders, upper back, core, thighs, shins, even the feet…all of it adds up and makes a huge difference. The hips feel less fatigued, feel supported by the structure at large. We’re redistributing the workload, making the movement more efficient and easier to execute.

This is essential for injury prevention, as well as how quickly we progress in reference to our “fitness” goals (I really hate that word). It’s also a strong metaphor for how to live a meaningful, integrated life.

As an example, many people’s quads tend to overwork. It makes sense because the quads are relatively large muscles, and so they get into the habit of absorbing the responsibilities of smaller surrounding muscles that may not have learned to do their more nuanced jobs adequately. As a result, a lot of us have tight quads and hip flexors. They’ve spent so much time gripping in an attempt to address what we’re asking of them, and they’ve learned how to execute the smallest range of motion possible to do things like walk, sit, stand, ride a bike, etc.

Additionally, these tight muscles often become weak muscles: they only know how to do what they’ve become accustomed to do. To avoid constantly being tired, the body adapts around that limited range of motion, learning that to move outside that comfortable range is not an efficient use of resources and that we can survive with less. Evolutionarily, our brains are being taught that anything outside of that commonly explored range of motion is no longer essential for survival and so our brains slowly faze it out. It’s true, we won’t die…but ask those muscles to expand and move through a larger range of motion, and they are at a loss. Not forever…our bodies just need to remember what they already know. And those muscles will remember a lot faster with the support of the system at large (ie. the surrounding muscles). We’re training the whole structure, to make the entire body healthier.

My ballet teacher, Richard Geiger, used to use the phrase “stealing from Peter to pay Paul.” That’s what we’re doing when we address one “injury” or discomfort by short-changing another part of the body. Here’s a few definitions of the saying that can be used in a more universal context:

-to pay a debt, obligation, etc. by creating or leaving another one unpaid 

-to take something from one person or thing to pay a debt (or hypothetical debt) to another, as to sacrifice one's health by overworking

It’s true socially as well. Metaphorically, if the body is the company/business, and the muscles are your coworkers, think of the quads as the worker who insists on doing his coworkers’ jobs for them, or resists hiring additional team members to help distribute responsibilities. Noble at first, a good way to plug the hole in the short run…but over time, less and less is actually possible for this person. By paying one debt, another (more crucial one) goes unpaid. Their capacity caps out at a certain point if they don’t learn to ask for help. The other workers also sort of forget how to do their jobs, pull their own weight, because they get used to someone else doing it for them. In training to increase this “quad’s” (overworker’s) capacity to undergo more stress and execute larger and more proficient “movements” (tasks), the company needs to acknowledge the ways this can be a full-body effort, otherwise they risk enduring unnecessary hardship. Lasting change requires a full-body effort. These are the moments to ask each other for help, to rely on each other.

As a performer, I think this is the sneaky difference that sets a proficient technician apart from a memorable artist. The “it” factor. Maybe the technician understands the principle of full-body movement…but the true artist also uses this thorough attention to detail, this full embodiment, to call upon the deeper layers where our stories and experience lay. They know that the full self is required in their offerings, not just the full body, and that by negating the self they are starving the offering of its depth. 

This artist knows how to integrate every single prior experience they’ve had in a creative process. They know to ask questions and seek answers that go beyond the physical, but do acknowledge the wisdom embedded in the physical because the body has been there every step of the way throughout our respective journeys. They know that it takes work, facing yourself, being real with yourself.

We are all artists. And as a teacher, this is the integrated work that I’m interested in training. 

November 23, 2023

Frottage: a long overdue google search for rosie

Frottage is the act of rubbing to create a texture. So, if you rub your pencil over paper when you have an object beneath the paper, you end up with some fairly interesting shapes and textures.

A simple example of this would be to place a coin under your paper and then rub over it with a pencil. Due to the action used, it stands to reason that this art form is also known as "rubbings." The technique was developed by Max Ernst in drawings made from 1925. Ernst was inspired by an ancient wooden floor where the grain of the planks had been accentuated by many years of scrubbing. 

Every practice, every experience we have is exactly that: frottage, rubbing at the surface in order to reveal the complexity of what lies underneath. We receive clues, insights of the dense history that came before this moment. Some of it will be pleasurable and some of it will be painful… but if we choose to see it as art, it’s all inherently beautiful.

You’ll hear a lot in the psychology/self help realm that people with traumas see the world through a distorted lens. That our “triggers” cause us to act as if in the past, reliving those traumas that we never reconciled. Something about this logic, while true, makes it sound like only the “traumatized” people, who have faced extreme stressors, are viewing the world with bias…when really, that’s what all us are doing. The surface layer is presenting itself in service of those deeper textures that often lay buried, waiting to be revealed through a kind of spiritual frottage. And while having biases can’t be avoided altogether, empathy and compassion are two threads that can help us understand another person’s perspective, which, in turn, helps us understand our own perspective. If we engage in this metaphorical practice of frottage, we traverse the visible parts of ourselves over and over with the hopes of understanding the underpinnings, and the collective consciousness at large. 

There are infinite ways to see something. Alter the angle of a projectile by a degree, it lands miles away from the target. Alter the perspective on a topic, or a person, by a degree, and you’ve got something new altogether. I was talking with a friend this week about how many times we’ve redefined our relationship to each other over the 13 years we’ve known each other. Friends, collaborators, colleagues, lovers, mentors…I don’t think we would have grown as close as we are now if we hadn’t tried to see each other through all of those different perspectives, shading and shading until we had something to work with. Until we could really see each other more clearly.

Yesterday I was taking a dance class at Steps, appreciating just how much another friend of mine has grown as a dancer and an artist…I wanted to watch him dance but didn’t want him to feel my eyes on him, so I watched him through the mirror. Literally a different perspective, where I can see a person directly through an indirect reflection of the thing itself. I think he has been engaging in a kind of meditative frottage in class, engaging with the material through repetition and consistency, in order to reveal the deeper layers of his movement…and he’s been doing it in the absence of my perspective. I wanted to leave it that way, let him keep exploring those depths without contributing myself to the process. However, witnessing his practice inspired me to go deeper within myself, serving as a reminder for who I am, who we all are.

Is it more valuable to use this practice of frottage to see things the way they truly are, to go deeper, even if we might encounter a painful pill to swallow…or do the rose-colored glasses stay on so that we can create meaningful offerings in the perceived environment of love? Maybe we should just leave well enough alone and not go shading in something, revealing the depths of something, that seems to be doing well as it is. 

Personally, though, I’ve never been the kind of person who can live on the surface. I like to go deep.

It starts to feel impossible to know what is “right” and what is “wrong.” I’ll start talking in circles like this with friends and the only way to really conclude is by saying we are all out here just doing our best.

The more we double down under the pretense that we’re right and other people are wrong, the less we’re actually seeing the totality of the world we’re living in. No one of us is absolutely right, just like there couldn’t possibly be an absolutely true way to see the world unless you believe in an omnipresence like a god. It’s everyone’s word against everyone else’s word. Which inspires me, at the very least, to share stories, share myself, with compassionate people. I specify that the people we share ourselves with ought to be compassionate because that way, whether or not we see eye to eye neither of us will aim to condemn the other. And, if I’m lucky, they’ll share their stories too. 

By sharing our perspectives with others, exploring ourselves to our depths, we dare to be seen, and we simultaneously provide more clues to the unspoken secrets of the universe. As we compare notes through our various lenses, we slowly begin to shade in the contours of the deeper layers of our collective consciousness. The practice of spiritual frottage reveals the seeds beneath it all, the threads that bind us to one another.

November 15, 2023

redefining our center

I’ve been working towards finding a few new homes for Flow State. Scroll down for the update because I think I’ve done it…but I mention this more to share some insights I found along the way. 

For the past year, my “main” studio, where I taught the most, practiced the most, and generally spent the most time, was in the East Village. I’ve met so many incredible people in this community, and it began to feel like my home. Now that I’m taking my personal offering, Flow State, and giving it wings to fly on its own, I’ve been striving to find a place to continue these classes where I feel that it would succeed. I didn’t want this to become that phenomenon where you’re out with a group of friends and you change venues only to find that you’re losing half the group along the commute. I live in Harlem, but know that’s considered inconvenient for Brooklyn dwellers. The East Village, I realized, has begun to be the center of things for me. I’ve built my life to exist around this nucleus, and it’s been so beautiful…but what I have begun to understand is that I conceived that center myself. I made it up. And that means I have the capacity to alter it as well.

That capacity to redefine our center is one of the top things I love about New York when asked…the fact that when you go through a bad break-up, your favorite coffee shop closes, or you have a stressful encounter in a certain neighborhood, you can completely reconstruct your daily routine by simply reorganizing yourself around a new area, or a new job, or a new hobby. Sometimes that shift only takes you two blocks away, and because of the way this city is, it’s a different world altogether. 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been really grateful to redefine my personal center around my home space. I hadn’t realized how much I had been missing the experience of nesting in my apartment, and this is definitely the time of year to rediscover a slowly cooked meal enjoyed while wrapped in a blanket on the couch.

In short, we each have the power to redefine the nucleus, that seed that we shape a life around. Nevine Michaan talks about placing yourself at the center of your circumstances. Our circumstances are fluid, always changing, and so much of our power is our ability to recognize that change, see it as a blessing, and adapt to move with those currents, with grace. 

That’s how we arrive at a place of balance.

If you know anything about my movement practice, you know I’m obsessed with balancing: on one leg, off center, with my eyes closed, wherever. Balancing in a physical sense can be thought of as a redefining of our “center” given our current circumstances. Balancing requires so much listening because even though we give the appearance that we are in stillness, in a momentary equilibrium, the reality is that our heart is beating, our breath is flowing, our blood is moving, and the environment around us is in flux. Not to mention the fact that we are doing all of this on a rock hurtling through space. 

Striking a balance, redefining our center, requires both effort and grace, discipline and surrender, in even doses. Physically balancing the body happens by virtue of balancing the two hemispheres of the brain. We acknowledge the center, reference the midline, witness the sum of the parts only if we honor the parts themselves. After all, how can we define the center if we don’t know what it’s the center of? 

In that coming together, things get quiet for a moment. Everything outside ourselves, a little more dim. We assimilate. That’s a flow state. It’s that momentary appearance of a suspension at the top of a roller coaster, knowing that you’re about to take a dive into the unknown. That evenness gives an impression of emptiness. You become a vessel, and I think in those moments we can really meet ourselves…find balance in the center of ourselves.

Anyway, I’ve decided that the Flow State practice will form its own nucleus, and I’m trusting that wherever I host it, it will attract whoever is meant to be there. I can’t wait to collaborate with you all, and continue to coauthor this offering with you.

November 7, 2023

Contemplating Daylight

I’m excited to feel like time is on my side. Daylight savings is this reminder to slow things down, we reverse time as if to give the space to revisit, or to go slow without feeling like we lost something. By doing so, we also receive more darkness. In the dark it’s easier to hear, because our hearing becomes a sense we more readily rely on in the absence of seeing. So we go in, and we feel in that place as well. We allow life to touch us, reach us on a deeper level. 

And so comes seasonal depression, but it's just that: a season. Another flavor in our lives. Life can’t be the same thing all the time. A lack of variety makes even our favorite things lose meaning and depth. I want to welcome this phase, see it as an opportunity to enter a space of introspection, curiosity that isn’t measured by pragmatism, utilitarianism. Something less quantifiable…that’s the season we’re entering: the ineffable, the unknown.

And we don’t need to build it from scratch, the elements exist in each of us. We just need to get out of our own way in order to reveal this truth waiting to be expressed. It’s a lot scarier than operating under a predetermined set of conditions shown to generate a specific result. In some ways there’s nothing efficient or convenient about this process of discovery, unless we redefine what it is that we seek in a life well-lived and allow that definition to take the heart of it into account. 

We aren’t machines. While we may fit trends, having all been woven from the same cloth, all the same breathing and decaying matter…those trends are not things we need to conform to. Not if they’re true trends. We aren’t becoming something outside ourselves. We’re expressing what’s always been us, revealing the sharing of a common ground.

October 27, 2023

WHOLENESS

My mentor, Miles Borrero, released his memoir this past week (buy it here: https://tr.ee/VSymiGPXl9). (Plug: we’re also leading a retreat to Colombia in March. Info at the end of the email.) 

I was at the pre-launch and had the opportunity to hear him talk about his experiences writing and releasing the book. Miles is someone who’s got the poetry of spoken language down. I’ve always been in awe his succinct articulation with words/cueing as a yoga teacher. During the Q+A, someone asked how it felt to revisit his childhood as a part of the writing process, being a trans person. To paraphrase, he stressed that for him, he has never wanted to negate the moments that came before the present, or reject any previous versions of himself, because that’s how he got to where he is now. He talked about wholeness.

Transitions are really profound, whatever sort of transition it may be. I think it’s where the bulk of the insights take place. Miles’ words on transitions encouraged me to reflect on the concept in a very different context, through the lens that has always made the most sense to me: my body. I’ve worked hard at using words to accurately articulate myself…but my body is still the closest thing I’ve known to truth. 

To be clear, in no way do I mean for this writing to comment on, or condemn, any trans person’s experience. It’s simply a reflection based on the words of a mentor.

I’ve always been obsessed with finding ways to eliminate any gaps or perceived glitches in a series of movements, so that where I end up is the seamless result of all the places I’ve been. What muscle has to engage, when, and how intensely, to smooth out the moments between A and B? How can the entire duration of the movement feel intentional, in the sense that it reads as having happened on purpose? How can I narrate along the way so that all the parts of the story, no matter how peaceful or uncomfortable, resonate for me? On my yoga mat, when I “fall” out of a pose, if I embrace that new pathway as it emerges, it usually takes me somewhere interesting. Or, I embrace the pathway of the fall, enjoying it with a laugh or a peaceful surrender. I accept that this is probably what needed to happen within the narrative of that specific practice. I let it hold meaning.

This investigation of “the moments in between” also impacts my work as a dancer and choreographer. When improvising with other dancers, I work to create a real-time score: some durational piece (usually based on whatever piece of music we’re using), created in the moment, that would feel like a finished narrative to a hypothetical audience. It requires a constant “yes, and…” logic that actors also use in improvisation, where backpedaling and canceling out the information one of your collaborators offered is forbidden. That way, every choice made by every dancer is just another ingredient added to this thing we’re making together. We’re not in the business of adding a ton of sugar to cover up for a “mistake,” we’re working to build something that is takes into account all the things we’ve thrown in the bowl along the way.

But even when I’m dancing alone, I use this logic to govern the way I improvise. In movement, I believe it’s the ego that causes us to clench and grip in a moment where we are being pulled elsewhere. That’s not to say effort isn’t required, but sometimes we’re just ignoring the current state of things and wishing we were somewhere else…in another body, in another headspace. I often using the analogy of a navigation app like Google Maps: if we don’t have location services turned on, we don’t know where our starting point, A, is. How could we possibly navigate our way to B if we don’t know A? We’d be basing it on someone else’s journey, or where we wished we were.

Maybe originally we had an intention to do something exciting or impressive, and things didn’t go according to plan. The pathway from A to B was disrupted, and maybe our wholeness, the composite forces acting on our body in that moment, indicate we’re actually being pulled to some different destination, B*. Is it useful to backpedal and try to figure out where we “went wrong?” Was it wrong, or was it just different than what we thought, or hoped for? Either way, that’s where we are now: that’s the present moment, which is where all of life happens.

Perhaps it’s not an efficient use of our resources to try to use the present to erase a memory of where we’ve come from. I like the concept of trusting the transitions to carry us, from one moment to another, landing us where we’re meant to be based on the wholeness of our being.

October 19, 2023

Boundaries to give shape and form

My friend asked me this week if I talk about the things I talk about in class based on what I write in these emails. I said that sometimes the clarity I get from having written something out makes it easier to share a thought while teaching movement…but sometimes I only realize what I want to write about once I’ve found its metaphorical counterpart in the body. 

Last night in class, I felt called to use a strap in two different ways that created boundaries for the heart and the feet: the place that we love from, and the place that grounds us. Tangible boundaries in our movement practices help us experience our bodies differently, and redefine what we believe to be possible. By using something like a strap to assemble a stable edge we can then “hit” against without breaking it, we bear witness to our own strength within the container of the body as we recruit different muscle groups that may have remained dormant otherwise. 

The instinct to explore this concept with my students rings true in other ways, as I prepare to clear out space in my life to return to myself. Something I’ve been reflecting on a lot lately is the idea that I’ve been giving the best parts of myself away to others: teaching during the prime slots instead of being a student to other master instructors during those same times, structuring my day around how I can conserve energy for the things I need to do for others, or even letting a friend or colleague’s schedule determine when I eat, when I sleep, and how our days can then coincide more effortlessly overall. All of these practices have a time and a place, but as someone who has only recently learned how to set boundaries at all, it feels like an important time to come home to myself, and to give myself the best of me. 

Anyway, as the seasons shift, it’s natural for us to want to turn our awareness inward and become more contemplative. Return to the reservoir of untapped wisdom within ourselves, in order to bloom and share ourselves more wholeheartedly once spring comes around. And my intention is to give myself more of that time and space: days of rest, restoration, and reflection, in order to ultimately be a better teacher/facilitator, friend, person.

A sabbatical can be defined as a practice implemented “to strengthen one’s relationship with the Lord.” The word “sabbatical” comes from the word “Sabbath,” which is a day of rest dedicated to God. Essentially, a sabbatical is several Sabbaths put together. In a nondenominational sense, we are referencing a fortifying of our connection to the divine, to that which is greater than the individual. 

Sabbaticals, recesses, retreats, they are practices in service of us reconnecting with our bigger “why,” so that we can touch our world the way we are meant to.

Especially living in New York, it’s pretty hard to justify taking time for ourselves. Especially when there’s people to please, money to be made, and someone who’s always ready to step in and replace you. That’s where boundaries become essential: I dig my heels in…I define my own edges, which often times means saying no. I remember what I’m about, what I value, and what ingredients I use in the recipe of a meaningful life. Scariest…I trust that the universe will continue to provide what’s meant for me if I turn down the volume knob on the doing, and focus more on the being.

I’ve seen it work before…my mantra this morning while meditating was “I am okay.”

Boundaries are paradoxically about freedom: they help us define the edges, giving shape and form to the infinite. We become free to move about the cabin of our minds. Our capacity can then increase; with love, and trust, our perception of ourselves moves toward the infinite.

October 12, 2023

Energy flows where the attention goes

I had to look up who’s responsible for that quote. Tony Robbins, who I don’t know anything about. He seems famous. But a mentor of mine is always using the phrase, and I’ve been sitting with it today.

I just finished an hour-long sit. My meditation practice always gives me the space to let things come to the surface that have been weighing on me, and the time to subsequently gain a wide enough perspective where I can let whatever it is go. Sometimes one thing, or one person, occupies my thoughts the entire session, nagging at me and continuing to pull me off my center and away from myself no matter how many times I return. 

The transformation is what keeps me coming back, though, my learned capacity over time to recover from this turbulence, and end the sit feeling different from how I entered it. There’s probably no way to avoid these little episodes along the way, the things that pull us and test us. The true test, I think, lies in the process of recovery. How quickly and gracefully can we come back to ourselves when something pushes us off our center?

The body is how we make sense of our world. It literally holds the entities that give us our five senses, and it’s through those senses we interact with everything outside ourselves. And in our physical practices, recovery is key. Too much physical activity and recovery can’t happen. An improper dosage of movement, or a lack of the holistic practices that make our physical practices sustainable over time (diet, sleep, mental health) cause us to push our bodies further and further from the ease and freedom we’re seeking (whether that ease/freedom is in the form of a pain-free body, gracefully executing a series of quick and precise movements, or effortlessly dead-lifting something heavy). 

We need to give our bodies time to recover, or we will not make progress as efficiently as we could. Everyone agrees on that as far as I know.

Our minds, our hearts, are no different. Humans are the only species believed to be perpetually in a state of fight or flight. Not just when we are being chased by an animal trying to eat us, but in the moments we’re running to catch the subway. 

How can we incorporate practices that allow us to recover from the inundation of news headlines, work deadlines, heated discussions with loved ones? If there isn’t adequate recovery time, our energy continues to flow to the thing, or things, that negatively consume us. Therefore, our attention is constantly captured by a series of things that don’t deserve us. We give the fullest parts of ourselves away to the grind, the things that chip away at us and give us little to nothing back. Further, social media shortens our attention span so that we habitually consume small bits of information that each require recovery thereafter. As this kind of content often isn’t directly related, as we scroll IG, for example, the drip-drip-drip into the bucket of ongoing stressors accumulates so quickly.

We need to be vigilant, so that life doesn’t slip through our fingers. It’s so easy to forget the meaning of it all, to just go through the motions. 

Mindful movement practices, like yoga, or the flow state practice, are ways that we can learn to put our bodies through safe dosages of stress and subsequently train ourselves to recover efficiently. We temporarily experience discomfort: sensation, vulnerability, fatigue. Then, we return to our breath…ourselves, a little quicker each time. In learning how to return to ourselves more often, we learn how to take care of ourselves. It extends beyond the movement practice itself, permeating into other aspects of our lives. 

Seated meditation gives us this too, but if our pained and anxious bodies are where our attention keeps returning, this proves to be challenging. The first piece is addressing the body: becoming more embodied, and using the wisdom and experience stored in the body to learn effective recovery techniques.

When we leave time and space for recovery, it’s easier to actually be a part of the world around us. When I’m in need of recovery, I can’t even appreciate the view from my apartment (it’s really nice!). When recovery doesn’t happen, we stay in a fight or flight mode. From a biological standpoint, we’re perceive danger, threat, often in the absence of it, and this prevents us from holding space for friends or loved ones, or engaging in meaningful dialogue for too long before our attention travels to those ongoing stressors. They’re like parasites, and we’re feeding them every time we give them attention. We’re feeding them with our energy, and that’s energy we could be putting into something much more beautiful.

October 2, 2023

Developing the Candid Shots

When you just keep going, there isn’t time to protest. Our society is built on that momentum, the one where we can’t stop to ask questions. It scares me a lot because it makes me feel like I don’t have a choice in the matter of my own life. That if I take the time to ask the questions I'd like to answer, then I might miss something crucial. That I’ll miss my life. 

But I think life exists inside the questions, the pauses, that not-knowing then becoming something more. 

Doing what we can already do, in life, in our bodies…it’s good for maintenance. Train your best tricks and they can stay your best tricks. But growth requires that we spend time inside of the discomfort, inside of less familiar circumstances. Small fish in a big pond. Being humble and so curious. Learning our way to the other side. 

There are choices to make on a macro scale as well, though: is this learning process worth it to me? Does it align with the life I’m wanting to build? 

Sometimes, we don’t know and need to try. 

Sometimes, though, too much trying over too long a period of time sends us into autopilot mode, and then we just keep going while forgetting what it’s all for. It’s so tempting to just schedule yourself out, because it’s in the empty moments, the unstructured time, that you begin to question everything. In the silence of the moment, suddenly we hear the voice that says “burn it all down," i.e. more discomfort and uncertainty. When we’re busy, we often forget that we have the autonomy to editorialize and trim the fat, to leave space for meaning. The hustle keeps our sights set on something else.

But sometimes, still, it’s only in the persistent act of trying that we find love for the thing at all. Or the person. Every choice, though, is perfect at least in the moment it was made (teacher Mary Dana Abbott reminded me of this). Beyond that, make no assumptions. 

I’m trying to try more things, see what I know and what I don’t know. Just have more experiences, and to feel free in doing so. See what sticks and what falls away, leaving grace in the form of unstructured time…

Take dozens of candids, but know that not all the rolls of film need to be developed.

In all the analyzing, contemplating…I still wonder if I’ve been forgetting to live my life lately. I think so much, to the point of paralysis. I guess the more frequently we wake up from the fog, where our life is living us, and not the other way around, the better. That’s all we can really do: pinch ourselves to waking when the dream is up.

September 22, 2023

Faith in the landing

As a kid, my mom used to describe her amazement and disbelief at the experience of landing in a plane at LaGuardia airport. The way she saw it, you were inches from landing in the water when suddenly, the runway appeared out of nowhere and everything was happening according to plan. I had a similar experience landing in Cabo this week…the airport is surrounded with barren desert-like sand, and I found myself doubting the certainty of the landing process. Maybe that’s why people clap when the plane lands (yikes).

I see it as a reminder to trust the process…of life, and its individual occurrences. We’re living our lives and we can control the day-to-day, but ultimately the start to finish is largely out of our hands. The plane is the vessel taking us from A to B, but we are not the pilots, we are just the passengers. We can’t directly control the trajectory, despite having booked a certain itinerary. Of course we hope for the best, that our plan is carried out smoothly. It usually is, all minor hitches considered. We can complain if we get blown off-course, if the flight is delayed, or if the crew runs out of snacks or blankets…but ultimately, all we can control in the journey is how we choose to spend the time. That’s the majority of the experience anyway: our perception of it.

Having considered the parts we can control, when it comes to the parts we can’t control, I think faith is key. During the car ride to our AirBnB, my dad asked me if I would ever go sky diving. He said he doesn’t trust things like that because of all that could go wrong. I used to feel the same, but have since rationalized that the people running things like that, while inherently as flawed as any other human beings, have likely considered and anticipated the more serious issues they may encounter, much more than I have. It’s in their best interest, financially as well as spiritually/emotionally, to not injure or kill people. Also, they probably know a lot more than I do about the safety precautions based on their relative experience alone. More enjoyable to have faith, and trust that the pilots in those circumstances are in control of what we cannot personally control as passengers. 

Landing a plane is no different. I have to believe that the pilot knows more than I do. Especially once you’re already in the plane, moments from landing, probably best to just have faith. The awareness of endless, uncontrollable factors can make us worry and cling more…or less, if we relinquish our desire for control and go with the flow. (Even if it’s bound to be a disaster, best to stick that landing with grace.)

Best to have faith in the landing, that you’ll fare well in any moment of impact. You made the choice to embark on the journey…even if you haven’t chosen it, here you are. You’ve planned the trajectory to the extent you were able, you’ve cultivated your perception of the experience en route. Surely you’ll deviate off center in certain moments, which may even end up enjoyable or preferable. So when it comes to the landing, much like a gymnast’s dismount, if you’ve done all you can up to that moment, there’s no reason to grip and resist your initial touchdown. Best to have faith, best to take it as it comes and trust that  you can weather the impact. That trust creates the internal peace we seek.

September 10, 2023

Repetition and Equanimity

One of the most impactful and inspiring movement practices I’ve encountered is a mobility workout that my mentor’s mentor, Will Chung, coined “Chung Fu.” I trained under Trevor Gibbs during the pandemic…he was based in Austin at the time. 

Basically, it’s a series of duration-based, repetitive exercises that move through a small, isolated range of motion, ad nauseam. Each exercise goes on for long enough for you to witness your mind and body going through a full trajectory of thoughts, sensations, responses, ebbing and flowing in a highly visceral and stimulating way. I always hit a wonderful stride in my seated meditation practice after something like this. 

If you’ve taken any of my movement classes, you’ve probably done some of these drills with me. Despite my initial exposure to the classes being virtual, and despite me barely knowing Trevor from the 6 months I spent in Texas, the practice has continued to change my body and my understanding of what’s possible over the years. I’ve watched the practice drastically alter my dancing, and my overall confidence in my personal expression.

So, naturally, I’m constantly trying to figure out WHY it’s so effective. My reflections as of late are twofold:

1.Repetition

I touched on this last week when I spoke about balance. We gain countless insights from doing the same thing over and over. In this process, we also access a state of flow: the consistent somatic and energetic rhythm puts us in this sort of meditative trance where we become more introspective and are more likely to be romanced by the details. As my teacher Nikki Costello said last week, it’s through repetition that we become more deeply sensitive.

2. Equanimity

Which brings me to my second realization: these mobility drills have a set duration. When a teacher is leading you through, they determine this duration, and it’s out of your hands. For this reason, Trevor suggests that when you’re self-leading, you set a duration for each exercise at the onset, and remain congruent: match your intention with the outcome, to the very best of your ability. Basically, in both instances, the time spent on the act is the time spent on the act, and there’s no changing it mid-way if you start developing an aversion to your experience. I adapted these reflections into my own offerings, as a part of my Flow State classes:

“Duration studies are a form of research in which time is used as a constant variable (initialized at its declaration), in order to reveal our relationship to both mental and physical stamina and thereby increase our capacity to sustain a given action with grace.”

When the duration is set, we can learn to turn off the part of our mind that is trying to measure how much time is left. Once I trusted the practice, I noticed that I could really let go of my desire to control the circumstances, and I was able to increase my capacity to be present inside of all the sensations and nuances that were coming up, knowing that, as with everything, the experience was ultimately impermanent. This acceptance of things as they are, not as you wish them to be, is also a core tenet in the Vipassana meditation technique.

All of this keeps us engaged in the present moment, which delivers much more integrated results than dissociating our way through a movement practice. Playing the aspects of duration and repetition, while remaining sensitive and equanimous, really put us in a lovely liminal space: uncertain, transitory, but so rich in its potential to transport us somewhere magical.

September 6, 2023

striking a balance from within

I’ve always loved seeking balance in a malleable, transitory, fleeting way, so that no matter where you catch yourself in space there’s some kind of equilibrium in each moment. We used to play a game of balancing scales in elementary school, working together as a class to use select weights that would balance some known or unknown entity on the other side of the scale. Collaborating to strike a balance, we tested what was too much and what was too little. We learned from our guesses, recalibrating to get a little closer each time we tried and failed. 

In my movement practices, I’ve experienced profound somatic meditations in recreating that same investigation within my limbs as I move through space. In my yoga practice, I was gifted the opportunity to explore longer holds in specific shapes. Eventually, I became confident enough that I could translate my findings into the unpredictable timing and spacing of my improvised dance practice. And even when the measurements weren’t exact, I’d recalibrate and get a little closer each time I tried and failed (fell).

I think equilibrium infuses purpose into things, the energetic lull we get as a result of the suspension in a balance. That perceived and quiet pause where the two ends of the scales are aligned, the top of the roller coaster right at the edge of some impending momentum, throwing yourself from two legs to one and landing on the ball of your foot with fleeting precision, reaching zero unread emails in your inbox…in the ephemeral state of all i’s being dotted and all t’s being crossed, we are afforded a moment of clarity and insight amidst the turbulent pace of things. It’s the eye of the storm in the seed-center of ourselves. A poignant stand-still where we can collect ourselves once again before we take meaningful action. 

And the more scenic pit-stops you can carve into the nonstop roll of time, the more you notice them when they occur, the more it all actually becomes a flow.

Let’s talk more about striking a balance in the body. At first, from the outside, maybe it looks like you’re stopping things while you navigate the facets of your form, determine the variable entities and how to use different parts of yourself as engines and anchors. What looks still from the outside is actually an introspective journey to the core of yourself, and in that place you’re taking more time to process. You’re a curious scientist, measuring the weight of the parts in order to align and arrive, to assemble and assimilate your form. 

The perception of time differs inside of you in that moment. You’re becoming the superhero in an action movie who can slow down time in order to measure a precise striking point, or dodge a punch with ease. This is your flow state. The moving parts of the moment unfold deep within you, like a dimensional kaleidoscope, “this endless archaeological dig: you think you’ve reached the final layer, and then you bring down your pick one more time, and you break through to a whole new mine shaft beneath with a maze of tunnels and bottomless pits” (Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl). But from the surface, to someone else, this work initially looks like you’re at a standstill. Pay your appearance no mind…you’re just going deep. And when you do come back to the surface layer of things, the visible sheath of your existence where your head is above water, you’ll eventually bring those deeper findings with you, like souvenirs, artifacts from within, from the deepest and trust parts of yourself. Only then will the flow be visible from the outside. 

In the meantime, plant the seeds within. Stay engaged in the practice, stay curious. You’re in there, waiting to be revealed.

August 21, 2023

What is Flow State? (version 2.0)

I’m constantly defining and redefining what this Flow State offering means to me, creating boundaries for it and then buffing the edges to slowly form this fluid structure that’s accessible for as many people as possible. 

I talk about it a lot, I’m constantly plugging the classes (sorry), and I’m constantly inspired to invite more and more people in my circle to attend one. From the bottom of my heart, these classes mean so much to me. It’s the most authentic way I’ve found to express myself and share what I feel I’m meant to share in this life. The classes continue to fill my cup, and I want to thank everyone who has attended one (or more than one) for helping me build this practice. I have so much gratitude, and am so excited to see where Flow State takes me.

I’ve found so much clarity as the facilitator of these sessions. Yes, the practice is a way to witness ourselves through the lens of the body…but it’s also become a study of how we can use each other as mirrors to connect more deeply to ourselves. 

In the last two Flow State classes, we ended the session with an exercise I call “energetic mirroring.” Two people enter the space, and the practice begins in stillness, just seeing each other. In the process of seeing someone else, we inadvertently see ourselves. We project our fears, hopes, ambitions, desires…and if given the time and space to do so, we bring attention and sensitivity to all those invisible threads that connect us to every living thing outside of ourselves. We recognize behaviors we see in others, because we have felt them as our own. We directly experience the body’s response to stillness, and notice all the sensations and narratives that emerge as a result. 

And then, as that relationship organically evolves into a movement study, our bodies are a vessel for authentic communication. As this silent conversation progresses, we witness this ever-constant, harmonious wholeness, as is represented by the vibration of the sacred syllable “om.” We shed the “doing” state that defines some of the warm-up exercises in the Flow State practice, and get to the root of things…we see the inherent beauty from a place of being. It’s a moving meditation that happens in direct relation to another person. I’m doing my best to describe it, but really you have to be there to understand it.

This is my favorite part of the Flow State offering. Not every student opts in to participate directly, and some have even voiced that they had a more profound experience watching. The role of a witness is equally as important when we’re asked to do something vulnerable, because the way we build a strong vibration in the space directly affects the outcome, and we are all players in that game. 

Even in witnessing the exercise from the outside, though, I’ve received the feedback that “this is the thing that’s missing from the world.” That makes my heart sing.

August 18, 2023

Some truths will die with you. There are things you will know that no one else will ever see or feel. Share the loves you can, express the bits of you that are available to come forward. You are a series of short stories bound into a single spine, one narrative does not define you. Never fear the constant progress of breaking yourself down into your most basic essence, for you are comprised of infinitesimal seeds, each more capable of becoming than the last. Break yourself down, often. Realize the words underneath the exterior waiting to be said. Solve, then dissolve, preparing for the next small battle. Be effervescent in your fight to the end. Malleable, shape-shifting in your delivery. Expose the loose brick to change yourself in a way that will last. Sustain yourself with small, daily choices…consistent, daily practices. Don’t abandon yourself.

August 16, 2023

The “Almost” Moment

As I continue to practice Vipassana meditation, I’m reminded every day of the inherent impermanence of everything, the way things are constantly changing: “The most important in Vipassana practice is anicca (impermanence). As meditators we are faced with the impermanence of ourselves.” (https://atala.dhamma.org/more-information/resources/anicca/)

We are always on our way to something, and we are always simultaneously in departure. In nature, while sometimes changes appear suddenly and drastically, evolution take place as a result of many small, barely detectible adjustments. A series of recalibrations on a cellular level. A constant process of shedding and becoming.

When I teach yoga asana, I talk a lot about “the ‘almost’ moment,” a place that’s quite vulnerable in nature because it reveals our strengths while spelling out our shortcomings. If practicing a transition into a headstand, for example (which you could do with me this Saturday the 19th from 2-4), we will initially experience a place where raising one leg up only seems to do so much, and then we usually resort to frantically kicking in order to bridge the gap between where we are and where we perceive we are supposed to be. The “almost” moment lives right at that precipice before the energy shifts and we start kicking. It’s that uncomfortable edge where maybe our muscles start shaking, and our brains can’t qualify the experience based on what pose we’re in. We might feel like we’re at a standstill: our ego works covertly to make us forget that we are impermanent and ever-changing. 

In one way, reaching this “almost” moment shows us how far we’ve come towards the pose, maybe further than ever. But the part our ego hates is when we realize that all our strength isn’t enough, yet, to shape-shift us into the next phase without becoming someone else for a moment.

I encourage students to sit with this “almost” moment, cultivate mindful breathing there. Be present: stop the car and take a look around, see what you notice. Be curious about the process: push right up to the edge, particle by particle, over and over, until the next step reveals itself to you like magic, so undetectable in its delivery. As my mentor Tomislav English often says, “find what you need to work on, and spend time there.” That’s where the evolution takes place, those series of recalibrations: the small, subtle, yet profound adjustments preparing us for the next phase. We might not notice the process acutely, but as the Vipassana teachings constantly state, we are always changing, and can rest assured that the process is happening. Trust that energy flows where our attention goes.

The meat of the practice is in the way we thread together the moments, so that we are “in” the mindset of yoga for the full duration of a practice, not just in the poses that feel important to us. 

Most of our lives are spent in transition, similar to the asana practice. I can recall countless times where I impatiently shoved myself into the next phase of something that I thought was right for me. In so doing, I missed some of the crucial building blocks I needed to arrive to the next phase with grace. Sometimes transitions stretch on longer than we planned, and it makes us give up on something, or someone, altogether. 

Knowing timing is hard, sometimes impossible. When do we push, and when do we rest? I think nature gives us lots of clues. And I think in learning to be present and available to the moments as they come, we worry less about the things that exist outside the moment we’re in. After all, we only ever belong to this moment.

Katonah yoga teacher Marco Migliavacca posted this wonderful insight about wuwei, a Taoist principle that exemplifies “the art of letting things happen,” and I find it fitting here:

I LOVE bridging metaphorical gaps between movement and the experience of being human. It’s one of the cornerstones of the Flow State practice. If you’ve never been, come experience the magic! If you’ve been before, the offering is always evolving, ever-changing…as are you…so come back again soon.

July 25, 2023

The process of inquiry

I used to be the kind of student in school who asked a lot of questions. They were usually “good” questions, and being praised for that kept me in the habit of external inquiry for a really long time. Asking questions is a great way to learn, and I did learn a lot from asking them. Lately, though, I’ve been wondering what I crave in this external inquiry, and if that’s useful: Validation of my own beliefs or intelligence? Some knowledge that I’m incapable of obtaining on my own? The feeling of a shared experience with someone else?

In any event, I think if asking questions becomes too frequent a habit, we discredit our capacity to find solutions on our own. We rely more on someone else’s wisdom than we do on our own, which places this other person, or the role these various people play, on a pedestal. And as relationship coach Jillian Turecki (IG @jillianturecki) is constantly reminding us, anyone placed on a pedestal inevitably becomes a fallen hero in the moment that we discover their humanness.

It’s felt more authentic these days to let my teachers, mentors, peers and colleagues guide me into anchoring myself: I ask the questions internally and, along with the information I’ve been given, I see how much of the answer I can discover on my own. This internal inquiry has helped me to step up instead of waiting for someone else wiser than me to tell me what’s best. More importantly, it’s taught me to trust myself deeply. These moments of pause before asking the question out loud afford us an important insight: we know more than we realize if we’re really listening.

In a post-class discussion yesterday, my teacher and mentor Nikki Costello said that the yoga practice requires us to remain in relationship with our own learning, and that in that process the yoga will continue to show us ourselves. Therefore, the yoga resides in this process of inquiry, and getting to know it intimately, at which point we will get closer and closer to ourselves.

Pressure versus pulling

We got into this post-class discussion about inquiry yesterday as a result of me sharing some insights I had during our asana practice, and sharing that I wanted to have the insight on my own instead of seeking the answers outside of myself. 

I’ve been having a what I’d describe as a “pulling” sensation down the back of my left arm, on and off for a few months now. I haven’t wanted to ask too many questions of other people because I wanted to gather information through my own process of inquiry. The sensation felt so inherently me, somehow, and I wanted to get to know it on my own. In class yesterday, I received a very subtle cue that reminded me of an adjacent place in my upper back that required what felt like more “pressure:” more engagement and integration of the muscles, and that adjustment then allowed the adjacent pulling in my arm to immediately subside.

So, I got to thinking about the dichotomy of concentrated pressure versus pulling. I think sometimes pressure, or effort, can feel scary in its intensity, especially if we aren’t used to it, and there’s definitely such a thing as too much of anything…but anything alchemical, where we seek a state change, requires a baseline level of intensity. It’s not always the kind of pressure that feels like heaviness or effort…it may also present itself as grace, or ease. 

Pulling, however, indicates an imbalance. Some part of us isn’t holding up its end of the bargain, and the result is often disharmonious. I keep thinking of a small child pulling on his mother’s hand, or clothing, or hoop earrings, because a need isn’t being met. “Pulling” could also be a pulling in a muscle group to compensate for a weakness elsewhere, or a pulling in the mind to some moment outside the present, or some habit that doesn’t serve us.

I started “running the experiment” to see how else and where else this dichotomy holds up. First, my teacher Nikki offered up the example of digestion: if we don’t have enough heat (read: concentrated pressure) in the digestive organs for them to to their job well, that heat gets “pulled” to the head and/or the heart, thus creating an imbalance. We talked about the bandhas as a useful practice to create harmony in the digestive tract, by redistributing this pressure and softening any pulls. Throughout our discussion, I also drew parallels to a few other poses and bodily sensations I’ve been experiencing in my movement practice. 

I then reflected further on my meditation practice: the profound distinction between letting the mind “pull” me out of the moment, versus sitting in the “pressure” of the turbulent mind long enough for something to alchemize. These opposing factors are at play in a seated meditation, in a conversation with a friend, in a movement practice.

I think the magic happens in that pressure, the concentrated and uncomfortable nature of it…and that the pulling we often experience is an indication that we lack a critical anchor, that we’ve lost the center of ourselves to some extent. It’s an indication that we need to enter back into our unique process of inquiry and engage in practices that will show us ourselves. 

And ultimately, the pressure I’m referring to, that I’m encouraging we seek, grounds us, brings us home. 

July 11, 2023

Flexibility as a Lens

Our bodies provide a clear metaphor we can follow in order to make sense of how to function in our daily life. Basically, the principles we adhere to in order to develop intelligence and sensitivity in the body carry over and largely apply to how we can develop intelligence and sensitivity in our minds, and our hearts. This is something I’ve always believed in, based on my own experience and experiences I’ve witnessed in others.

I’ve been thinking about the concept of readiness this week. Six years ago, I traveled to Israel and Europe by myself for 3 months with no return flight. In hindsight, I didn’t have enough money saved, was too concerned with “doing it right,” and had too much chronic stress overall to actually enjoy myself. It makes me wonder if I was “ready” for the experience. I definitely WANTED to be ready on a conscious level, who wouldn’t? However, I think the crucial and subtle distinction lies in the way we often fight against ourselves on a subconscious level: the habits we unknowingly fall back on to prevent a departure from our comfort zone/everything we think we “know.”

Subconsciously, I think I was generating an internal resistance that didn’t allow me to fully prepare for that journey. That way, when I couldn’t fully embrace it, some deeper part of me could say “told you so” and I could return to my comfort zone having said I tried.

You might say that if I wasn’t open to adapting in a new environment and making necessary adjustments to accommodate that experience, that my mindset was inflexible and I employed a sort of “reflexive” response to protect myself instinctively.

I want to relate this concept to physical flexibility, which is more concrete as there’s more science to help us understand it. For a deeper dive, you can check out this video on flexibility barriers. I’ll cite it a few times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4Cv58UFiJc

Most barriers to flexibility are believed to be neurological, not mechanical. Meaning, we must gain the trust of our nervous systems in order to improve upon how much range of motion we can access. That way, the nervous system feels safe allowing us to expand past our preconceived idea of a boundary or a limit. We begin to understand that more is possible.

Two interesting flexibility barriers, again, that provide insight on the mental barriers we may be up against when approaching growth, discomfort, and change, are:

1. Stretch reflex (AKA muscle spindle reflex): the muscle is quickly stretched and, feeling unsafe, it quickly contracts to protect itself

2. Fear, or guarding: your nervous system is on high alert and is not allowing your muscles to lengthen
   

You barely even have to change any of those words to see the way we may be generating subconscious mental barriers in life. If we stretch ourselves too quickly and too far, we may feel unsafe and quickly contract in on ourselves. If we are afraid from being hurt in the past, we may be on high alert…to the extent that growth, discomfort, and change feels like more than we can process. It’s all in service of self-preservation, which is beautiful, and must have been necessary in past instances or we wouldn’t have learned that behavior at all.

So, what to do about this? If we take these three theoretical ways (above) to increase physical flexibility and transmute them into a more universal context, we get:

1. Take your time, and stick to a dosage that provides desired results.

2. Maintain a clear focus, a clear intention. (Even the graphic of the bullseye in the photo above is a nice touch for this one.)

3. Practice consistently.
   

All of this helps our nervous system gain our trust, and then more and more feels safe to us.

These are principles that I’m utilizing as I continue to develop my Flow State classes. As you can see, this kind of practice is something that can be applied to a job, a relationship, a physical endeavor, a new hobby, and that’s why it matters so much to me. 

Our bodies are more intelligent than our minds, having always existed in the present moment by nature. Therefore, we can use our bodies as a personal development tool to gain insight within the context of our other various practices.

July 3, 2023

The Gayatri Mantra is one that seems to unexpectedly resurface for me in the most potent and turbulent times, for that reason it’s always felt very significant. Hearing it chanted, and chanting it myself, I’ve had sudden and sometimes cathartic insights that have provided me with clarity of mind and action. Friends and students have asked me to translate it when it comes up, and though the feel of it intuitively resonates in this vague spiritual sense, I haven’t taken the time to sit down and revisit any of the translations in a long time. I’ve had it memorized for years, but want to be able to talk about it in more concrete terms, also so that I can understand, through a different and more analytical lens, why it’s had such an impact. Having just passed the 10-year mark since learning the mantra for the first time in my 200-hour yoga teacher training in Asheville, it felt appropriate to look into it. I have the mantra tattooed on my back after all, and I don’t want to be one of those people covered in Sanskrit and not even being able to explain it.

The mantra, sometimes called the mantra of illumination, is said to awaken the knowledge of truth. An important distinction to make: it does not “teach” us the truth, but reveals that truth which already exists within us. The mantra is universally considered to be the essence of all mantras, illuminating all seven chakras in order to inspire a refinement of our inner vibrations.

It makes sense that the mantra seems to surface for me in a time where growth is taking place, but it’s never once presented itself in the kind of circumstance that I’d think of as peaceful or calm. Jillian Turecki, a yoga teacher and relationship coach, said on a recent podcast that “growth sometimes feels like death.” And in the truest sense, when we are growing we often have to pull the weeds, starve the parasites, kill the parts of us that are holding us back. Make room for the parts of us that are ready to claim space.

This Full Moon in Capricorn is actually a really lovely and grounded time to do just that: shed the parts of us that are keeping us small, so that we can more clearly identify the parts of us that are asking to come through. Not a teaching of what we lack, but an awakening of what we already are, and who we have always been.

Spirit Daughter states, “When we are fully aligned with Capricorn, we live a purposeful life that resonates with our core values. We extend our truth into the world from a firm foundation rooted in the soul. We also understand that part of our life’s work is to find the truth of our being and fully understand who we are in this lifetime. The Capricorn Moon is a time to go within and understand your core-essence.”

June 20, 2023

REDEFINING SENSITIVITY

When I was in elementary school, I remember ritualizing my yearly cry. It’s not like I planned it out, but there was this certain sense of knowing the timing of the next occurrence was near. There were likely small cries and fits dispersed  throughout, but once per school year I would absolutely lose it in front of my classmates. Snot, howling, a big production. The circumstances weren’t even pertaining to anything particularly significant, but the occurrence itself came like clockwork. I knew it would come, I almost counted on it. Eventually this ritual faded out and my skin got tougher (something like that), but from a very early time in life this act kept me branded as someone who was “too sensitive.” 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of sensitivity lately, even before my time studying Vipassana meditation. We often use the word to describe someone who reacts to their circumstances in an overtly emotional way, or someone who takes things personally. However, breaking down the word itself reminds us that being sensitive has to do with how aware and in touch we are with our senses, and how well we perceive the conditions of the present moment. Not HOW you feel or how you express it, but the fact that you are aware that you are having an experience. Vipassana meditation champions this quality as essential, as does the Israel-based Gaga movement practice. As a matter of fact, both practices are built on our capacity to become more sensitive, not less.

When I think back to the unmet needs of a younger me, I wish I could tell her there’s nothing wrong with feeling things deeply. I’m working to teach myself that lesson now… to separate my understanding of sensitivity from reactivity, and therefore become more sensitive and less reactive. And it’s making me realize that many of the robust visceral and emotional reactions we have are from going for long periods of time, denying just how sensitive we really are. I don’t think the dramatized yearly cries I exhibited as a kid were any indication of how sensitive I was, or wasn’t, just that I had gotten into the habit of dampening my connection to the sensitivity that we all innately possess as seeing, smelling, feeling, tasting, hearing creatures. I was probably so disconnected from witnessing my own experience that I became overwhelmed by the backlog all at once.

Most already know, but if you don’t, I recently spend 10 days meditating for 10+ hours a day using the Vipassana technique, an ancient technique that teaches us to observe reality as it is with a nonreactive mind: to observe reality as it is, not as we would like it to be. The Vipassana practice uses the ever-changing and impermanent nature of the body to come to terms with the truth of our reality: we notice sensations with a nonreactive mind, letting things in the body exist as they are while bringing our attention to those details, understanding that all the myriad nuances will, as everything does, inevitably change after some amount of time. Much like the universe.

We notice, we become sensitive to our experience, and then we detach from craving the good, or fearing the bad. In this way, Vipassana teaches us that we can “understand the truth of the universe through the framework of the body.”

Humans are so amazing. We live through the fullest spectrum of incredible and devastating moments, no matter what we try to DO to control it. It’s just a cascade of moments of being. 

Desensitizing ourselves with different numbing practices may feel safer in the short run, but it’s not a solution that really makes sense to me. I want to help build a world where we are so, so sensitive. Where that sensitivity is met with compassion and equanimity, so that the harsh reactions and yearly big cries feel like unnecessary manifestations of a truth that’s already been realized from moment to moment.

I think sensitivity is a super power. I don’t know, think about it. :)

June 12, 2023

I was joking with friends in the days leading up to my 10-day Vipassana silent meditation retreat that I was long overdue for a good cry, but that it's not the kind of thing you can force or push out. In that same week, in two separate conversations, I had one friend jokingly say that if she watches sad movies she can force a cry. Another friend unrelatedly remarked on my desire for truth and authenticity...depth, in relationships and in general.

I won't give too much away about the nature of the 10-day program, because maybe you want to go. On the car ride up, some of the fellow meditators who carpooled with me said they didn't want to give me any spoiler alerts, and I appreciated them allowing me that newness of experiencing things on my own terms for the first time, with little to no frame of reference. 

What I will say is that after some time, and all at once, the physical embodiment of the technique became apparent. I felt a full and visceral connection to my body, and it was such a privilege. With that, came an understanding of my calling, my offering, my purpose, in the truest, most authentic, deepest way I've ever known...which spawned a very very good cry on the floor in my room. 

In its teachings, the Vipassana technique refers to an "understanding [of] the truth of the universe through the framework of the body." I felt such an immense relief in witnessing that connection. It's as if Vipassana serves as the missing thread that can tie all of my most meaningful practices into an offering that is innately me: movement, meditation, yoga, dance, choreography, artistry...now I see the ways that the most relevant and integrated practices in my life are related, and are all one in the same.

Later that same day, we were introduced to the concept of Adhiṭṭhāna, a Pali term translating to "strong determination." This phrase was used in reference to sitting for an hour without moving or changing our posture, but I felt a really clear resonance to the concept in regards to my values as a teacher and an artist. Over the years, the people who have felt most drawn to my offerings, and those who I, in turn, have felt most drawn to, have a deep integration of this quality.

In short, all of this has filled me with such conviction. If you haven't experienced a Flow State class yet, come through. I'm so inspired to get back with my students, colleagues, and friends this week and, as S.N. Goenka said countless times, "start working again."

May 17, 2023

We experience life as a constant undulation between “do” and “be”…one informing the other, a subtle dance back and forth in order to meet different aspects of ourselves. Life demands a lot of the doing, and sometimes we have to dig our heels in a bit in order to experience the quiet sweetness of being.

It’s nothing new, we know the benefits of meditation. We’ve heard it all before. I think the hardest part of developing a consistent daily practice is the discomfort we face, or fear that we might face, during the practice itself…the being practice where we meet ourselves. Rumi said “the quieter you become, the more you are able to hear,” and sometimes that’s actually pretty stressful and overwhelming. We have this preconceived notion that meditation is supposed to be calming, relaxing, ease-ful…and when that isn’t our experience, we partly wonder what we’re doing wrong, and partly do what we can to avoid putting ourselves in that same uncomfy scenario in the future. 

Many of my mentors remind me, often, that the benefits of meditation aren’t necessarily meant to be experienced during the practice, but are meant to permeate into our daily lives and to integrate into everything else we do. That way, we can absorb this contemplative mindset into all of our practices and discover a fuller meaning and inspiration in our day to day tasks. (And, by the way, a daily meditation practice where your thoughts run rampant the entire time does still “count” as a practice!!!)

Even still, it’s really hard to start a consistent daily practice by waking up one day and choosing to sit still for 10-20 minutes. I currently practice meditating for 20 minutes, twice a day (which is something I’ve built up to over time), and still, despite all my practicing, sometimes I just sit there and find myself making mental checklists or revisiting something stupid I said the day before. Sometimes it does feel like a “waste of time,” but I trust that isn’t the case, based on how the rest of my life has been altered dramatically since I started meditating. 

I’m learning to judge myself less throughout the process. However, one useful tool I’ve always had at my disposal to help me steady the ripples on the surface of my thinking mind is movement. After all, our bodies are the vessel our brain is sitting in, so if there is dis-ease in the body, it makes sense that the mind may have trouble settling. 

Moving meditation is a really lovely way to get one foot in the door. Through diverse movement practices that cultivate a flow state, we can create a container of “doing” that’s conducive to the “being” we seek in a seated meditation. Cultivating a mindful physical practice can help us develop a daily meditative practice. Then, we’re more likely to hold ourselves accountable to eventually letting the “movement” aspect fall away in order to sit still and reveal the innermost layer of our being, our consciousness. 

As I mentioned last week, “flow state” is about a delicate balance between effort and ease in order to experience a more meditative/contemplative way of being. My intention with these Flow State workshops is to provide my students with tools that help them access a richer dialogue with themselves. The rule breaker in me loves this format…I get to expand my teaching beyond the lens of yoga asana or dance or fitness, and find an all-encompassing way to get people in their bodies and in communion with their breath.

Long story short, I want to show people that movement is something we can use to feel better, to be in touch with our hearts.

March 7, 2023

I had a therapist who used to say that top knots indicate wisdom and serve as some form of aiming to protect the knowledge held in the brain and the crown chakra. I cut layers in my hair at the end of the summer and it makes me wonder if I lost something then. Maybe it’s just the change in the seasons, or my 6-month crack at sobriety…or the death of my grandmother, which I haven’t faced at all…or the fact that I’ve gotten burned enough times lately that even watching myself dance only serves as a reminder of all the times I opened my heart just to watch it get stepped on. I think I dance better when I’m heartbroken, so it’s been like watching the first scene from a horror movie, where you’re learning to love the characters but you know, based on the nature of the movie, that most of them are just going to get cut up by a chainsaw in the end.

I’ve lost faith in my industry, I think we treat each other like real shit, and I think in general we are all way too okay with it. 

I feel far away from myself lately, despite other people finally learning how to be close to me, and me learning how to let them in. I don’t recognize my body as mine, the things that it does, however amazing or mundane. I feel foolish believing what I’m trying to say when I dance, because of all the times I’ve looked back later and realized I was wrong. I’ve let my thinking mind run so rampant that slowing down scares me, the way that it used to. I’ve spent too long deliriously chasing down abstract aspirations. They’re beautiful, and I’ve caught some of them, but I’ve begun second guess their source, if my dreams are for me or just for my ego. I wonder, often, if love is good for you or bad for you and that makes me think I don’t know what love is at all. I care about everything but somehow I’ve also learned to let go and not care about anything, which sounds simultaneously like nonattachment and depression so I guess it’s just important how you choose to frame your own narratives so that you choose life over and over.

February 6, 2022

Take care. I think about the way my grandfather would take the last $20 out of his pocket to give to my dad as he sent him on a plane back to college. And I intend to take care, masking the things that I lack with a generosity that carves out my insides, guts me but somehow leaves me feeling full. 

Scraping out the last bits from what you have, and offering them forth to the ones that make your life worth living, like it’s your last breath and that then it might count. I’ll take care like this, take care of you, care of you like you’re my own. In care of me. You are. And this, without it I’m not me. I’m just the empty parts, without the brightness I get from your compassionate grasp. I need you more, despite what pours out of me and into you. 

I want so badly for you to take care, that I shove myself into you, layer-below-flesh to layer-below-flesh, I want to speak to your most deeply-seated heroes and tell them that I’m here now and you can stop fighting. Take the money, like it’s all I have but somehow it won’t turn out that way. I have to believe it doesn’t stay in that moment forever, two men an in an airport attempting to make sense of their love in terms beyond numbers and figures. That the intention accumulates as time persists, that the feeling lasts longer than the story being told. That it makes my father cry when nothing else will, gives me faith that our generosity is boundless.

February 4, 2022

Repetition scares me, in the alluring way that it forces me to see something more than once, examining its edges a bit more each time, when maybe I only loved it enough to live through it the first time. See a move, hear a phrase, try on an accent, but on loop, over and over, I romance it in a subtle attempt to integrate the most vital components and claim ownership over them. It’s addicting, the fear-space between the ephemeral and the concrete. The arduous, convoluted path between improvisation and choreography, and that in finalizing my choices, deleting the impermanence, I may realize that my idea somehow wasn’t good enough. But that’s something I can only really say for certain after seeing the same result again and again, over and over, ad nauseam, quietly and relentlessly analyzing the dysfunctional parts, like I’m mimicking myself, like it’s all some big joke, until finally, I give it up and grow tired of the thought altogether, pretending I wasn’t once in love with where it would take me. With all of me, I wish to discard it, to leave no trace that it ever existed, embarrassed that I ever possessed the hope that formed the thing. 

But I crave those do-overs because of the insight they afford me. They allow me to step into myself, to become something, for us to all become heroes for ourselves, heroes, just for one day, before the lights come on and we see the illusion shatter like a pane of glass falling in slow motion but placed on mute. The sound of the impact concealed, only to be filled in with our understanding of the fully weighted collapse of our own failure.

January 29, 2022

I’m not sure what happened first, think it all kind of happened at once…the loving myself, the letting go of negative assumption, the full acceptance of what I did and didn’t have in any given moment. I guess that one is still coming, the part where I’m more patient when I identify something I want that I don’t already have. We definitely aren’t all the way there yet but I guess we aren’t ever all the way anywhere.

Do you ever think about a past memory that makes you smile, and it made you smile then, so you smile your now-smile in remembering and then you try to recreate your then-smile. to measure the way it aligned your features, to anticipate in hindsight how your smile read to other people, if it was right, if it was enough to make them remember you the way you remember them now. You want to measure if your smile was enough to keep everyone from forgetting. Make them need you, make them unable to resist staying away.

Being needed is important, it’s ingrained deep in my DNA, to arrange the parts so I feel needed. Because I get so scared that I’ll be the one that lifts right out, like I’ve made trust again and again in the past. For a while the only thing I believed in was my own impermanence, and the more it nagged at me the more I feared the day I’d be rendered obsolete entirely. So I pushed against it with a tired insistence that made me a fulfilled prophecy of abandoned potential, never becoming what I was meant to become because I was terrified of having to do it alone.

I think needing someone looks like a lot of different things. I think when we don’t feel needed in the ways we crave, we position ourselves to make someone else feel needed, by us. So we get small, small enough to crawl into their arms and hide from ourselves. Maybe, we think, that will make them think of how much they need me here. But I can’t stay small, I rebel against myself more than ever because something inside me is still screaming “be needed, be needed.” Banging on the walls, clawing at them until my fingernails bleed. Please let me out, because a place where eI wait for a pull is better than cutting all the strings to lay here with you.

But then, like that first wave spotted just over a vast calm sea, it always comes back. A big, loud, open-armed should to just. need. me. To feel the space I left behind when I retreated back to my cave. Can you? It makes me resent all the complexities of my emotions, the frequency with which my heart breaks in solitude, with the nearest town a hundred miles away. Throwing a stone to measure just how far until I reach a neighboring heart, to see if anyone hears a siren call that stems not from seduction, but from a desire to form one supernatural entity, alternate my threads with your threads until the weave is so intricate that my breath is your breath. 

Do you need that or is this my journey, alone, like climbing onto the highest mountain, into a tent, with nothing but the clothes on my back, waking up to the sun and realizing there’s nothing left to do but try it all over again. Unzip your heart, and let a gust of wind disrupt what I thought I knew to be true, only to pinch the adhesions shut once again with the sticky salt of sweat and tears, feeling…different. Displaced. But ultimately the same, me, the mountain, the clothes on my back. The weather, my two feet, the only thing I need to hold me up, and even that, I may catch myself taking a hacksaw to a thigh if I thought it might let me be the needed one. From the outside, though, nothing has changed. 

Not for a good long while anyway. Eventually you’ll spot the sun damage, the decaying of once unblemished skin.

January 2, 2022

I am of the earth.

I am a flower, sown from seed, root, stem, and dirt. When I am in my natural habitat I thrive, I am something of a beauty to witness.

My vibrance calls for a deeper desire in someone else, to possess me. Inevitably, I will be pulled from the soil, claimed as an ornamental center piece, a peace offering, a splash of color when one’s heart has grown dull. I’ll last a little longer in a vase than I would in your hand, for I am strongest when not clung to. I’d do best not to be disturbed at all, for I am of the earth.

I do best when of the earth.

But next to my real home, I thrive most when left to my devices. Sun, water, and a quiet witness…you, romanticizing the inevitable decay before I become an equal with your dinner scraps. Discarded in anticipation for the next dopamine rush.

Me, of the earth.

Each of us, pulled from the source, placed in a consolatory habitat, a futile attempt to lengthen the gestation period of being owned by someone else before returning to the place where we really belong.

Each of us, at times, gripped between greedy, distracted fingers, fingers threaded to hearts who forget about us for long enough that we die right there in their hands, leaving them with no choice but to discard us, once they finally notice, by the very same roadside where they first found us.

Each of us, terrified to return to the earth, when that’s all we’ve ever been and it’s greater than anything we will ever become.

Each of us, only rivaling the universe when we brush the lips of the earth, empty the extraneous contents, peel off what’s been glued on top.

I am of the earth, and until I have accepted that that’s where I’ll return, there will always be a veil between my ego and my magic.

December 29, 2021

creating repeatable circumstances for growth

“It’s nice to be able to put yourself in an environment where you can completely accept all the unconscious stuff that comes to you from your inner workings of your mind. And block yourself off to where you can control it all, take it down…For me, the environment to write the song is extremely important. The environment has to bring something out in me that wants to be brought out. It’s a contemplative, reflective thing…Environment is very important. People need peaceful, invigorating environments. Stimulating environments.” -Bob Dylan

Start by treating your space as a temple, a place for meditation, contemplation, and an unveiling of your deepest modes of expression. Consider the following:

-Is something controllable blocking your access to natural light? 

-Is your vantage point too proximal to a wall or another tall surface that blocks your ability to see far? 

-Is there too much clutter in your immediate line of sight? 

-Do your light sources exude spaciousness? 

-Is there a scent that makes you want to breathe deeper and fuller? 

-If there’s a sound that’s triggering, can it be blocked with a high quality speaker or wireless headphones, coupled with a soundtrack that brings you into your body? 

-Are your feet warm enough? 

-How’s your initial body temperature? If it’s so elevated that you feel heavy, or so lowered that you feel tense, is there a way to adjust the air flow and/or the thickness of the fabrics you’re wearing? 

-Is there something you’ve been weighed down by that’s a “not right now” problem to tackle? Write it down, rest assured that it will be dealt with later, but leave it outside the realm of your current space. 

-Drink water in preparation for this incubative period. 

-Ideally, this time is experienced when you are not too hungry, but you have not eaten too recently, so that your digestive system isn’t distracting in any way.

All these things aside, if it doesn’t feel freeing then it needs some tweaking. Loosen your grip on what it means to create an intentional space as often as needed, but be consistent in your commitment to visit this space to some capacity on a daily basis.

A lot of physical practices can trigger an efficient synthesis of organization, the kind where the checklist of individual parts and their roles dissipates into an atmospheric hum, and one coherent thread emerges from the mist. Love, sex, success, power, caffeine, music: life, and all its idiosyncrasies, reminds us how to be in our own bodies. The magic in these altered states of consciousness, however, is their ephemerality: that instinctive, visceral response that we initially experienced cannot be contained, packaged, sold in the same way that we first witnessed it. However, if we can train our bodies to enter that state regardless of external circumstances, then we will more frequently access the feeling of fullness that we seek in our day-to-day practices. We can then overlay this seed of an intention on any external circumstance we choose, without having to abuse love, sex, success, power, caffeine, or music in search of its benefits. 

The most effective way I have found to do this is by expanding the blueprint of the body, through a series of durational, repetitive practices that serve as indexes, mirrors that we can use in order to shape an effective mindset, while increase our control over our body’s muscular function. The practice strips away nuance and narrows the scope of choice making, in order to turn up the volume on physical and mental stamina. The inherently uncomfortable duration of the various sub-practices gives the body time to find alternate solutions when its initial course of action begins to fatigue. Every time we practice, we shine a bit more light in the dark corners of our consciousness. Then, when the constraints of repetition and duration are then stripped away, the vastness of internal awareness remains in our recent search history, informing our creative expression with a seemingly effortless sublayer of efficient organization that makes space for a wider array of choice making than we had before the constraints were initially implemented. Now, the love, the sex, success, power, caffeine, or music, as it finds us, can be experienced on a deeper level. Its nuances are more fully realized. We get out of it what we originally desired.

Chasing that high without the proper tools to actually trigger it, however, creates addiction and numbness: we lose our capacity to taste each bite of our favorite foods because we are seeking the atmosphere that surrounded that first bite. So we fixate on swallowing without chewing, craving the sensation of fullness because at least it’s feeling something. Really, this process causes a deterioration of that essential catalyst that lit us up and sent us running in the first place. It keeps us docile and stagnant, satisfied enough with where we are when there’s a fuller world just beyond our reach, if only we knew to stretch a little further.

In a Harvard study conducted by Dr. Curt Richter in the 1950s, rats were placed in a pool of water to test how long they could swim before drowning. Initially, the rats survived an average of 15 minutes. Richter then began rescuing the rats right before they died, allowing them to recover, and then placing them back in for a second round, during which the rats lasted for an average of 60 hours. It’s believed that this vast discrepancy in duration is due to the rats experiencing hope, a belief that if they continued fighting and pushing their bodies past what they believed to be possible, then they would eventually be rescued.

If we take these findings and apply them in a safe environment, asking ourselves how long we can endure the parameters of a given physical, or mental discomfort, we can begin to push our understanding of what’s possible. We expand the edges of controllable elements in a given moment, despite the infinite aspects we cannot control. If we train our bodies with this in mind, we can not only increase strength and capacity but we can do so without fostering an abusing mindset, because we are simultaneously training our minds to shape an environment conducive to long-term growth instead of short-term performance. I imagine that parts of swimming in a pool of water for 60 hours include an intuitive grasp on active recovery. Surely, somewhere in that 2.5 days, different tactics had to be employed other than sucking it up and pushing yourself harder. 

Imagine the multitude of motivations, doubts, surges, emotions, that would come up for you if you were performing the same task, whatever it may be, for 60 hours consecutively. It certainly changes the notion of stamina when we think about 3 minutes of squats, or a 10 minute uncomfortable conversation. In either of those practices, a rigid mindset only serves us in the short run, and sometimes it even fails us then. Duration, coupled with a versatility of problem solving tactics, fosters a resiliency that transcends the 3-10 minutes in question. And then that way of being becomes an organic integration of our human expression.

October 29, 2021

no name

All we have is perception, what we’ve experienced and where we’ve been. Based on what we think we already know, we can determine what we believe is happening to us. That’s all we have, or else it slips right by us and is never ours to begin with. But the dangerous thing about perception is that the colors we use to paint our world are mixed from a past of failed attempts. We are more comfortable assuming that the suffering will continue. It’s familiar, and we can reference it based on what we’ve already seen, so we brace for the impact that may never come. In a way we will it into existence because if you prepare for a storm, doesn’t a part of you wish that the effort isn’t all in vain? Might as well run the course. In a way, we’ve anticipated what’s to come and we can convince ourselves that we are in control of the outcome even if we actually don’t know anything. I think we’d rather be holding any old thing than admit we are empty handed.

“What’s my next move?” I ask myself in a fraction of a second, and it’s based on reference, where I’ve already been and how it distantly resembles where I currently am. I try to connect the dots, and if I do it too well I pull myself into a past place, I inaccurately represent the now. I negate my current form. I am a magician, a perpetual amateur who believes themselves to be a master of their trade. It’s me, posing as me, telling some story that I’ve already told, maybe to lull myself into a deeper sleep, maybe in an attempt to finally understand what the suffering is really for, what trajectory I seek. What I do and don’t deserve. It makes it difficult to decipher down from up, and I conjure up a vertigo that consumes me. I create it from scratch. A miracle. An illusion. We all want to be fooled, we want the magic to take us over, like the nausea of falling in love. And if we’re lucky, we’ll be reduced to nothing, destroyed to the extent that no evidence of our existence remains, for all we’ve ever been seeking is the romance of empty space.

All the while, I’ve convinced myself that I’m the one pulling the strings, and that’s the conflict. My limitations make it impossible for me to be the one in charge. And actually, that’s a relief. I can choose to lean on the heartbeat that surpasses my own capacity. And maybe if I let the world carry me then I can slow the progression of my repetitions, my worst and ugliest pitfalls that are not really me. Maybe I’ll see that no one is asking for me to pay for my past crimes, that I’m the only one that remembers them anyway, that I could tell the story however I choose, that I could still make myself out to be the hero without touching the flame directly. 

and the implications on my future are mine to shape. It all got me here but it does not have to determine what comes next.

I can face something almost like what I’ve seen before and somehow come out the other side unscathed. What was once destructive becomes informative, builds me a home. It just needed time and breath.

September 5, 2021

Inspiration isn’t about the space around you, the space in your schedule. It’s not born from perfection, seeking, grasping. It’s not tiring, even when you are tired. It’s born from the space between the moments, and how you choose, again and again, to get quiet and listen to them. That inspiration where your soul tells your bones where to go. Your heart speaks with a voice that moves your bones. Enough that your bones can be read like a book. That doesn’t come from moving all your furniture against the walls and creating a space dedicated to your deepest discoveries, because you’ll still feel cluttered inside the walls of your mind. It doesn’t come from money, and it doesn’t come from free time, it often comes at the most inconvenient moments, strikes in an unexpected fit of tears when you least accounted for it. It comes from believing in something bigger than you, and that you play a key part in that grand gesture. It’s believing in love, and that you’re deserving of it. Brainwashing yourself into believing that you already have it, maybe. 

And then the rest just…falls into place. The manual labor of it disintegrates, dissipates like hot breath on cold air. That’s the moment that’s crucial, because it’s when you see that you’ve been there the entire time, waiting to be uncovered.

You see now that if you’ve done it once, you can do it again. You can rescue yourself as many times as you need rescuing. And that’s self love. And then the inspiration comes. And then there you are. And don’t be mistaken, there will still be countless days where you knock on the door and get no response. You’ll kick yourself for taking the “good” days for granted. But rest assured, it’s just a quiet lull before another kicking wave. Ride this too. You’re still there. You haven’t forgotten anything that you’ve once known. Listen to the space between the moments and you’ll know exactly where you fall into place.

July 7, 2021

I can lay here and pretend the space above me is a firing squad, the lights as the bullets. I feel the entry point at the right side of my chest. And I feel like I want it, I feel it spreading me, spearing me wide open. It feels good. It feels right to welcome being seen by something other than me. 

I feel the gravity of it all falling onto me and yet, I keep still. I hold steady. Still, until I stop wishing it were different. 

Something alchemical takes place when you let the light in through the bullet holes. It’s not empty space, it’s a mere replacement of your prior form. Love does that to you. Its impact leaves a void in its wake. The throttle is worth what’s taken away. Each time, more points of entry. Each time, a more desperate attempt to seek the exit wounds, to prove that it’s moved through you, left you, in a sharp gust of wind just as swiftly as it came.

Only once it’s gone can you begin to study what’s happened to you. Stop being the test subject that everyone else witnesses as a slow burn to demise, and begin sealing up the empty spaces with whatever belonged there in the first place.

June 28, 2021

Everyone is falling in love. You can see it in their art. Whenever your humanness stops suffering, your work does. No more driving force under dark waters, steering you into essential expression of the raw emotion. Suddenly there’s just this thin blanket drawn over all those deeper layers, and all you’re able to create is what the world already sees. It makes me feel nothing. And in all the suffering, the pain, however abstract, I feel something. I only want to learn from the artist who is hurting, because those are the ones who have something to say. You can see it in the details. What’s debilitating depression, paralysis for some, for the artist it’s fuel. It’s everything, it’s a career. It’s a voice that your world gets to know you as, your suffering becomes you, and you it. It’s not to say that identifying with our suffering is the end game. I’m just saying we ought to appreciate it more when we are in that place because when it goes away, when we unplug the drain and let the water seep out, all that’s left is a normal life. All the time that’s what we’ve been fighting for: a partner, a family, a house, an answer to all the questions you’ve ever asked. Except once you’re there don’t you miss the rush of it all? That chaotic upset where you simply don’t know. The full-bodied surrender, unabashed, abandoning all hope of knowing, diving further under the surface of the dark, dark water in order to ask even more questions of yourself. Searching for something and really, you don’t even know what. That’s the art I want to watch, and make, and be a part of.

I’ve loved the wrong people, and they made me into art. It makes me want to love the wrong people all over again, much like going to the battle front, intruding on enemy lines, despite how dangerous it may be. Despite all the risks, because you’ll return to your bunker with the intel you need to progress. Otherwise we keep telling ourselves the same stories until they’re no longer true, until we’re just going through the motions so that we have something, anything to say, and then we can avoid the simple fact that we’ve lost the magic of ourselves. The messy part is the part where being alive is most worth it, the navigating of the vital transitions that get us to a place. Once you’re there, you’ve attained it. Congratulations, I think you’ll discover it doesn’t matter.

It’s near impossible for me to fake happy. To be happy at all most days. I think happy finds us when we don’t look for it, but to tell someone to become that…when most of us are living in the transitional phase, on our way somewhere greater, that’s not a place where happiness lives. I do not bleed joy. I have it but I must preserve it, keep it safe, I’ve learned that because of all the times it’s been taken from me.

April 22, 2021

When I think about writing about my feelings I categorize it as something other than art. This writing won’t be the kind of thing I want to put somewhere for people to see. That makes it somehow less important even though I know this is where all art comes from: the feeling of it. Why is it when we feel the deepest that we want to create the least? It causes a kind of paralysis, forging an unnavigable divide between where we are and who we had hoped we’d become. We’re able to recall a time where everything felt easier, the days where we believed the story where we were enough, but it’s like someone else told it to us or we imagined the entire thing. Somehow it isn’t a part of the ground we stand on at present. No, that person was someone else. She knew she didn’t need to reach outside of herself for everything she needed. She would have thrown out all her material possessions, renounced every ounce of past selves, every hint of who she once was, because she so wholeheartedly believed that where she was was self-sustaining. A closed system that didn’t need anything else to survive. A closed system that has since imploded and now I wonder if the inspiration that was birthed within that make-believe chasm has disappeared along with the notion of lasting love. Was my potential just as conditional? I wanted to exceed my circumstances and I see now how much I was a prisoner to them.

March 22, 2021

Be wary of the ones who perpetuate suffering. Every occurrence is a flame, a fire burning through its duration of illumination. It’s tempting to suffocate the flame, shortening its life span. Reduce the oxygen, pour water to extinguish. Otherwise, maybe it’s advisable to let things run their course even if at times it’s too much to look at. Feel what it brings up, see what it shows you. The ones who perpetuate are the ones who keep adding fuel, wood, fanning the flames when it’s time for the light to go out. Afraid of what will get them in the absence of this light, in the fullness of their own darkness. Stack more logs, tell yourself that something else isn’t right and even when everything is, add something to change the facts. Create a story to allow you to run from the silence instead of fight for it, because arriving to a place of stillness might require you to navigate the parts of yourself that you’ve been running from all your life. The one who diminishes, the one who allows, the one who fabricates. Which are you?

March 18, 2021

Some people will make you feel like you’re wrong. Keep looking for the ones who make you realize you are right, and have been all along, just the way you are.

March 5, 2021

Writing, write something write anything. Write to move your fingers. Write to feel something, no preference what it even is. Write to fill the space between the thoughts that consume whatever part of you wasn’t paranoid before. Write because maybe that will make someone see you, or because no one will see this at all. Write to distract yourself from the gravity of the world around you and that it’s the realest thing you know. Write because it might be real, or it might not be real. Write because you feel in control of the words you’re choosing, or because it feels like God is choosing them for you. Write because it’s safer than oblivion. Write to make something of yourself. Write because there’s enough avoiding in this world to last a lifetime. Write in order to pretend. Write because it might be the last thing you don’t do if not. Write because your head hurts and your body is numb. Write out of spite, write for the irony of it all. Write for the fame, the acclaim. Write or else you’re nothing without it. Write to build a wall between you and them, a wall that hopefully they’ll spend the rest of their lives trying to climb over. Write to save space in the sound waves. Write so that no one has to hear it. Write so that everyone can, once you’re dead. Write to distance yourself from dying, for now.

February 22, 2021

I miss what the city does to me, despite the fact that only when I leave it do I notice, with clarity, what I miss so deeply. 

I miss shaping spaces, like molding clay into pottery, with the people who I have intimately known since before they even spoke out loud. 

I miss the baton pass of responsibilities, evenly spread across a vast stretch of time and space, spread until the film is so thin that it’s underwhelming, undetectable, emanating peace.

I miss cohabitating with a quiet fondness, silent and divided but somehow mirrored in appearance. Whatever the antithesis of two ships passing in the night is, that’s us, despite long stretches of time without puncturing one another’s autonomy. 

I miss the ability to drop whatever I’m doing to go for a walk, get out of my head, my world, in order to witness the infinite other little worlds that exist outside myself. Get a coffee. Look at buildings. Wander as if something invisible is guiding me. 

I miss looking around and seeing that the world is right, at least my corner of it, and that even the unresolved elements are okay because of their composite effect on my soul, soothing like a delicately spoken song, reminding me that everything is on its way to belonging.

I miss the gap between fantasy and reality, and how slender it is in your presence.

I miss resting a little easier because I know you’re nearby. I miss studying your features until I absolutely have to look away. I miss knowing but not saying it in so many words.

February 12, 2021

If I could stretch the edges of a single candle’s flame to encompass all the fantasies that unfold as I hold it in my gaze…I’d see thoughts, repopulating in rapid succession, I’d see bodies, writhing in response to a deeper calling. In response to each other. A seemingly cacophonous orchestra of expansions and compressions, folding into invisible seams, only to subsequently unearth themselves in fullness across the other side of the thin stream of light. Dancing but not to perform, not to shine outward, only to give and receive within the closed system of essential magnetic forces. Decisively cutting away whatever doesn’t need to be there, whether by melting or incinerating. Burning all the while, a quiet smolder with order, grace, and direction that encompasses the guidance of the most fickle winds.

February 7, 2021

Walking through a series of hallways inside of hallways, littered with the carefully preserved artifacts of all the things we didn’t become. Neatly arranged in different cabinets, each revealing some disputable knowledge that defined a historian’s career more than the people in his life ever did. Despite these endless facts that I could commit to memory as some future tense security blanket I’d need to regurgitate in a heated argument about nothing…it’s admittedly impossible to connect to anything that supersedes my own limiting and futile existence, because that’s the only way I’ve learned the meaning of love, by living it and calling it mine. It’s the only way I’ve learned to invest in the answer to the asking of why. Why are we any kind of way if it isn’t to rest our head on someone who we know will stay, because even with distance they have no other choice? I can’t imagine the unspeakable forces that draw us to each other living in some ancient form, though I’m sure they do, in ways I’ll never understand, but that doesn’t change the appearance of the unfamiliar. I can pretend I don’t know what I see and that might make me feel less fearful than if I looked and saw something I recognized. And maybe a walk through a museum is a potent time to pay homage to everyone that came before me, those who inadvertently allowed me to burst through the container of my own skin in the presence of those who light me up. Maybe those who are no longer living are the only ones who can really answer the questions sitting on the surface of my mind. They’ve already lived the entire course of their own lives, after all, while I’m only right in the middle of it. So then maybe it’s knowing that even if they know something I don’t, that there’s no feasible way to ask them anything. The interrogation is a dead end that stops with the same caliber of hardness as the pane of glass separating me from the physical representation of what once was. A person, a civilization, an entire series of lives, boiled down to a few rooms in a building. The questions, the answers, that fill my mind…I feel certain that there wasn’t a proper allocation of space for those entities. It’s seemingly rare that the soul inquiries I crave most are on someone else’s agenda too. Arrogant of me to assume that a museum of ideal has-beens might even slightly resemble my constitution of values.

January 9, 2021

The constructive interference of a moment, delicately woven between the absence of sound and the presence of blank slates, receding eyes, soft focuses, unknowable yeses. A landscape of invisible memories, versions of people coming and going despite the fact that they’ve never actually entered this space. Simultaneously the best and worst of us, mounting into a series of rises and falls that define the matter within. Ghosts that live so vividly in my thoughts that I can hold them in my mind and simulate their presence. 

January 5, 2021

There are working formulas in place when we listen to music. Various elements at play, dancing and escaping, into and out of each other, in some unspoken harmony that transcends the sounds we hear. Something about the full arc of a song conveys a self-contained truth, in a way that’s quieter than words but louder than any other knowledge we have ever touched. The constitution of the sound is foundational, in that we can overlay our own narrative on top of the noise and feel as if it fits perfectly: a piece that was missing but always belonged. The truth of the music reveals what we’ve been trying to say all along. It can highlight parts of ourselves we have been reluctant to see, add dimension and an integral inquisition to the sides of us we thought we understood…help us come to terms with the fact that real-life magic cannot be contained or defined, that an experience is never complete and therefore can never be mastered by our intellect.

Any narrative we speak, whether with our words, our bodies, our energy, corresponds to the constitution of sound. Meaning, when we add music to our experience then suddenly things make just a little bit more sense. Any song adds potency to the moment if we are inside of that present state, so long as we are seeking the truth it provides. Of course, the moment we think we know where we are, we are lost. We must add the layer of knowing without attempting to seize it. The process is not greedy; there is nothing more selfless than contributing to the infinite soundscape of the living realm. It’s not ours to have. Therefore, if we attempt to capture the feeling, the narrative, the fleeting entity and call it our own, it will slip between our fingers like a naive attempt to hold water in our hands. The collaboration is endless, but it is not any of ours to have. The aim is to acquire experiences, not knowledge. Our responsibility is simply to open the doors, the windows, the heart spaces, as many as we can, all at once, and let love rush in. Cast the heavy curtains aside, in order to more thoroughly and directly feel, absorb, the warmth of the sun with our own skin.

January 3, 2021

I wish that wishing it hit less hard made it true. For months, I’ve crafted a fantasy and watched it form before my eyes. Like a dream you can’t poke holes in, where no matter how hard you search for errors and inconsistencies, you still won’t wake up. I remember the way my music was playing, loud enough that it was inescapable, knowing that all the things I’d imagined happening to the soundtrack of my film were just on the other side of the room, waiting for me to act. It aligned with the way I was used to calling things into my life. Lately anyway. The most inconsistent part is the readjustment period where I must revert back to the way things were, knowing that I know much too much to stay docile. Things were easier before where we were on a straight path moving forward on the timeline towards some other thing. Now, I’ve moved into and abruptly away from it. Tapped it, then sprinted clear across to some other place that I’ve been but have since transcended. It doesn’t feel like enough anymore. Maybe it’s true that it would never feel like enough. But the thing is, it was enough. All of it, up until now. That’s the kind of thing that makes me want to leave. Go back to a place that’s begun to feel like I understand the parameters. What always drew me back to this place was the fact that I didn’t know the edges. I’ve since been told what those edges are, but I don’t believe it. Not at all, and I wonder if that’s a breach of respect that I want to disobey orders. I’ve never been that one. Is it bad to? Do I want to fit in the category of good right now? Not really. “Everything is wrong now.” I think when we’re confused about something, it’s because of the inconsistencies. And if there’s inconsistencies, then there’s something we are misunderstanding. So what is it here? What part is a bit? Am I hiding from the fact that I’m falling back into the same things I’ve previously known, to the extent that I can’t see it for what it (still) is? Am I actually the same but just in different clothing, longer hair, a new apartment and new furniture after the multitude of episodes where I shed the parts of me that no longer worked? Is it possible to break yourself down so far that everything changes? Doesn’t some part of it have to remain the same? Unless you want to be dead, how can life transfer to a new experience if everything that you were no longer exists? What I’m saying is that maybe I’m the one who can’t break habits, patterns, limitations. I just adapt, to the extent that I get better and better at deluding myself into thinking everything will be okay. Hiding from myself. Inconsistent truths that guide me away from what I’m actually seeking. Or am I just conforming to a way of overthinking? Do we exist separately from other people and make similar decisions, only to find each other later? Or do we become each other in real time because we are so sold on spending every waking moment in their presence? Was it a matter of making compromises, copying habits that looked good, or were we really just waiting to reveal the relevant parts? Does my taste in music wake something up in you that you’ve always known, or did you learn to make yourself into the things you were hearing because it drew  you closer to anything that resembled me? I love noticing you notice the details. I hate how your body felt better to touch than I imagined, but that I told you about the way I studied the details, felt your breath change, I hate that I know all of that. I hate that you notice the details in that way, because things are easier when we don’t see them at all. Flowery words are easy to hide behind because they create a container that feels prescribed, and that way I can just read what I wrote, or cut and paste it, instead of skimming the top layer off my heart flesh. Once I’m done reading the words I’ve already written, I can immediately ask a question about something else entirely. It feels finite in that way, like a performance, and then I get to decide when I step offstage and turn back into the person that hides the intensity of what she’s feeling, and the detailed way she reads it all in real time. 

People com in g and going in these halls but they’ve never actually entered the space. They just live so vividly in my thoughts that it feels like they’re here when I’m holding them in my mind

Fantasizing about how hard I could scream into pillows, a feeble attempt to contain the magnitude of sound that would escape from my pretty mouth in order to express what’s been displaced in me from the gravity of you.

What does it mean when I stand on your bed, feet on the mattress, naked, looking you directly in the eyes? No sharp angles from our differing heights. Finally you’re right in front of me, straight ahead. I do it, and then I insist, because I know that when nothing conceals the base layer of our most vulnerable soul-selves, I might stand a chance in hearing what you have to say...the truths floating in the landscapes of your eyes, silent but steady in their delivery. I told myself, capture him here. Make this moment extend into another, then another, then another. Stamp an imprint in the fabric of time so that we can reappear in this way again soon, or maybe never leave it at all. Once the clothes go back on, it’s a certain extent of formalities. There’s a kind of expectation. We have roles that we’ve learned to play, and they’re us, but they negate our full weight. So the clothes go on, and then I leave the room, and it’s like I’ve walked through some invisible, but viscerally imminent, barrier. Your door doesn’t close, but figuratively some door does. I know the next time my eyes align with yours, the distance between our two knowings will be even greater. Greater in that we are further from all the things I thought I might be able to reach out and touch from now on. But lesser in that we’ve admitted that these two entities exist. That’s something that cannot be undone. So some door closed, but I still see you. And while we might not lay anything bare for a while with each other, I can still hear a whisper of what I already knew to be true. That’s fine by me. That sustains me.

December 29, 2020

It feels like a sort of betrayal to pretend things don’t bother me when they do. And it’s not necessarily a negative emotion, but it’s important for me to admit that this is affecting me, still, despite the fact that it’s inconvenient. And maybe it affects me even that much more because it’s so inconvenient, because it’s something that I’m allowed to look at but not touch. A kid in a candy store, but the kid is being told no. I want nothing more than to indulge in the taste of things, not just the appearance of them. I want to know what exists beneath the surface of belonging, explanations, rationale, the world where things either fit or they don’t. What about the realm where things just happen and we stop trying to master them? What about the place within our soul states where we call out to each other because something rings from the depths of us? I don’t think words exist in that place, because that would require us to deem a certain spoken language superior to all others. I think in that place it’s just energy, and I want to meet you there. Spending too much time in the surface world of our consciousness feels like a slow chemical burn. It’s like watching you simultaneously betray yourself just as much as you betray me. And it’s all that much harder because I’ve glimpsed the moments where we dip beneath the horizon line of sight into a world unseen. We do that together, in a way that when I’m there alone I can still breathe you. At some point you became an integral part of the fabric of my consciousness, and I find myself resentful whenever you aren’t there. 

December 2020

Nothing hits me anyMore. Did it ever?

I miss the impact of the punch. The pain inflicted from a series of missteps, trials and emphatic errors. The times where I hoped something might go wrong, so much that I braced for it, prayed for it with my body. The unspoken begging, pleading for something to end that never began, for something to begin that slipped from between your fingers, like holding onto water, like screaming in a dream. The way I asked to be choked, hit, scratched, bit, belittled, stifled, ridiculed. Addicted to the sensation of harm, knowing all the time that respect never existed within the four walls of my blameless mind.

I crave the way my chest stings after I’ve been scorned. The buzzing, burning resonance from sharp tongues and arguments and all the things I’ve never been. That big reveal, discovering you were right all along to doubt the validity of what you couldn’t see. The way you’ve always known but somehow you stick around and wait to see it through, stacking the odds against yourself with every passing minute.

I long for a sustained collision with thorned almosts. The kind of fragile rose that you reach and touch and watch with awe as a pinprick of blood trudges down your finger, soundlessly, with haste. Wanting more in a way so loud, so consuming, that it silences the pain. Colliding with dissonance, colliding with rejection, colliding into nothing but simultaneously everything. A room so dark that your eyes beckon for level ground, but your ability to feel is senselessly heightened. An atmosphere that devours your mind the same way it devours your flesh, hiding it from your eyes until you forget if it ever existed or if you dreamed the entire thing into being.

You ask for it, and it’s given to you.

And then one day it isn’t.

You open your eyes, seizing the day, you realize that there’s nothing there to capture. There’s much less to live for when resistance lets up. Once you’ve moved through the threshold of pain, you’re suspended in the void of nothing. A place where that once-visceral impact is effortlessly absorbed and there’s nothing you can say about it. That’s when it hits you: the fullest you’ve been is under their thumb. Did you even feel it then, or was it always just beyond your reach?

November 20, 2020

I remember standing in our yard in Austin, and a bird fell out of the sky and into the grass. Attacked, maybe. It left a streak of blood and feathers across the lawn, so we ran to find our where it had landed. It was moving but dying, so we waited until it was all-the-way gone and then we buried it. We watched it die, because what else was there to do?

Once Adam had covered it with dirt he asked if I wanted to say anything. I didn’t. There was nothing I wanted to do less than speak on behalf of this bird. This bird didn’t actually make the real me as upset as the embodied adolescent me who was showing face at the time. The repressed child soul within me, who was outwardly weak in order to maintain the status quo of our slowly decaying romance. She was affected by this bird falling from the sky, though I had moved on and didn’t want to stop myself from the next thing coming for me, just to dwell on a bird dying, as all things eventually do. I probably said something stupid just to fill the silence. Just to satisfy the expectation that was placed on me to speak. It felt better to speak numbness than to speak truth, better because the truth would leave me feeling alone, and no one wants to die alone, not even a bird.

Where do you want to die?

Answering that question, each of us silently to ourselves, has resulted in a redistribution of our physical forms to places that we may have never imagined. The “state of the world,” the “way things have been,” the “unprecedented times,” trigger, trigger, trigger, have triggered us to pull the trigger once and for all and make the ultimate choice. A place to make our deathbeds. We are preparing for death, plummeting to the end. Some of us feel ready while others of us are clinging to every edge of every boulder on the way to the bottom. It’s been true this entire time, the inevitability of dying. We feel it so much stronger now, though. It feels more relevant than it ever did, so we turn to family. We cling to what we’ve known, hoping it can cancel out what’s coming for us. We renounce our worldly possessions, realizing what matters most. Or we numb it out, like hours spent in a doctor’s waiting room, resigning ourselves to the unstoppable passing of time. Knowing that we can’t do anything to change the fact that we are fifth in line. Last in line. In this instance it feels sooner than we are ready for, maybe, when we’ll be seen. But that doesn’t change the fact that the time spent in that waiting room feels so endless that you begin to memorize the details in the wallpaper, the blemishes in the floor tiles. You know the scents of the people waiting next to you, comrades of war on this journey to the end. Are they waiting for a fate as grim as mine? Or am I lucky to have not been delivered whatever results are waiting for them on the other side of that door?

As we approach the door that will bring us to the next place, as we careen off the side of the cliff to our demise, we can’t help but wonder if we’ve done this life thing right. If there’s something we missed, something we could have gone without. A person we were meant to foster a sacred union with. A single sentence we could have expressed that would have changed our lives, or someone else’s. Did the entire trajectory fail us? Do we get to do it all over again? What’s one thing you’d scream from the top of the mountain if you knew that it would be the last thing you’d ever be able to say? Who would you say it to? Maybe it’s better to fill the shoes of the resigned self, removed from it all, silent as ever. Better to say nothing at all, because at least it’s not too much for those who witness you.

Better to say…

Life is a constant fluctuation between “say too much” and “don’t say anything.” Unable to strike a balance between the two, we either speak beyond our means or withdraw from it altogether. What’s there to say when something has already transpired? Maybe a lot, or maybe nothing.

November 20, 2020

My mission is to bring people together, but they have to want to be brought together. No amount of my willpower will change the truth of their willingness. I must honor the kronos of various interweaving souls, like traffic patterns avoiding collision. Some vehicles may never learn to embrace their time, no matter how much space is held on their behalf. But none of that negates my power, my aptitude, to bridge the gaps between different souls. See the similarities and common threads that bind us to twin flames, alternate versions of ourselves, counterparts, shadows. I am a firmly rooted entity, around which many divine beings circulate. I can orchestrate many complex orbits that coincide when they are meant to, coming to a front not a moment too soon, not a moment before they are ready, but not a moment after. My strength lies in my capacity to see significance where others fail to. Not to draw attention to what they are lacking in foresight, but to reveal to them that they have known it all along. 

I desire to instill trust in everything outside of myself, and that happens from a slowly burgeoning flame of self love and radical forgiveness. The seed of this desire stems from a patient unfolding of the layers of Truth, smoothing them gently over time, like the relentlessly diligent passes of an iron over some wrinkled surface. The seed of this desire stems from consistent daily practice that encompasses questioning but does not stop in the face of it. Waiting without stopping. Yielding. Surrendering. But never ceasing to expand the folds of consciousness that are sourced from this subtle, nearly undetectable seed. An invisible source that resides in the root of our beings. That’s home, and we are all learning to remember it so that we can return to it once and for all.

November 19, 2020

Default off your weakest parts. Give them space to speak or else they will pull the stronger forces in you back to a place where they don’t belong. Listen to the truths of the weakness, not to enable them but to bolster them with the confidence that lives so freely in your strengths. The standard is created from the assessment of what is lacking, so that the space we aim to fill is what lies between our potential and our demons. 

We are inherently in relationship to everything we’ve ever touched. Ignoring that sentiment does not negate the relationship, it only prolongs the inevitable alchemy that’s so integral to any change occurring. The change is still in relation to the places we’ve been. We are tied to our weaknesses because we have experienced them. Maybe at one point we even identified fully as those parts of ourselves, exuded a certain familiarity and fondness towards those things that were not us, were never us, to the extent that we had to pry ourselves from their alluring recesses. We wanted to keep them in the forefront of our focus and let everything else fade into the background. Somehow in the moment, that felt like the safest thing we could do for ourselves.

To pry ourselves from the places we are, the places we’ve been, implies that there is some opposing force that adds resistance to the experience of our trajectory. We may need to condition our bodies, our minds, and our spirits in order to overcome those forces that tether us, bind us, to our weakest moments so that they are no longer the driver. We cannot discard what feels inherently weak, though, and that’s a very good thing. These weaknesses anchor us to our inner truth, in that they are a point of reference from which we’ve originated. 

The origin, the “0” point, is our weakest and most vulnerable Self. From there, we climb, fight, pry ourselves from the place where we’ve begun, in order to reach the potential that mirrors the voice lying deep within us. We can never cut the ties from the “0” point, just like a diver must keep track of where the surface lies. Just like a climber must remember how to return, even if the path they take “back” is nothing like the path they take “up.” We dive, we climb, we stretch our edges as far as we can from our “0” place, like a first baseman making a catch while keeping one foot on the plate, but we never completely lose sight of it. We leave ourselves breadcrumbs, romanticize the ritual of remembering. 

And whenever we choose to revisit the oasis of our weakest points, our most bare, vulnerable Selves, standing in an open field with arms outstretched ready to take an arrow from the enemy…we bring with us the magnitude of strengths that we’ve accumulated. Only in possessing an all-encompassing variety of modalities can we stand a chance in holding ourselves steady in that place. So that we don’t lose ourselves and forget where we are, where we’ve been, where we belong. So that we stretch our arms out, knowing what very well might be our fate, and we do so without fear overtaking us.

Default off your weakest parts, or they’ll consume you until you agree to listen.

November 19, 2020

Make your circumstances ideal. Create a landscape in the present tense that encapsulates the “you” of your dreams. Make the seemingly untenable more palatable where you are. Measure reachable space in a way that accounts for the unconscious mind. Trust what’s unseeable and that you are still proximal to your deepest desires. Alter your perspective to be all-inclusive, more so than you might when things feel devoid of resistance. Wrap your arms around the colors of your current environment so that they become preferable to any alternative. Orient yourself to the best case scenario as your current self knows itself to be. The potential, the possibilities, the fantasies. Negate the limitations with the fullness of your form. Ask yourself to take up more space, and see if you can accommodate with every cell.

October 25, 2020

I’m biking home and I’m thinking about all the reasons why I’m still here. It’s October and I’m not sweating. I’ve left my heart and soul smeared all over these streets. And I love my heart, and I love my soul. I understand now why people scream here, they’re usually branded as the crazy ones but to allow the built up radiance to overflow into the sound waves that surround your physical body…and to know you’ll feel heard, heard in both senses. You’ll be heard in a way that I would never be heard in the solitude of a house on a farm. You’ll be heard but no one will have a single fucking thing to say about you because they’ve felt it too, especially now, especially if they’re still here. Let go, let go, let go. How hard can I push my legs to go faster, work harder, without losing my nerve? And how come I’ve never tried this hard before? I know that I can push further. I’ve felt discomfort, weakness, fatigue, I’ve faced it squarely and pushed right past it. I’ve felt discomfort and carried it another 10 meters to the finish line. I know discomfort. It fills me with adrenaline, electric. It unnerves me in the way that good sex unhinges you. It makes me want to scream I love you to the next person I see, and then figure out the reason why it’s true after the fact. It makes me want to explicitly state what I want because I know it’s also what I deserve. This city fills me with something that doesn’t exist in the English language. It binds me with an internal friction only to release me at top speed from the pinnacle of a hill, flying. Charging down a hill, crunching leaves under my tires, wanting to scream, but holding in the feeling for the next person I kiss. Let go, let go, let go. Who’s the next person I’ll encounter that will stride right next to me, back of hand lining back of hand, racing towards some undefinable entity that we both so vehemently believe exists just beyond the next blind corner? Stick with me and you’ll know. I’m drunk but I’m not going to act like that’s the reason I’m embodying conviction. If it happened when you were drunk you need to admit that some part of you wanted it to happen in a sober realm. The disconnect lies in you failing to believe that the part of you that wanted it is worth listening to. That it’s the majority. Or that if it isn’t the majority, that it’s worth pulling the majority into its corner. Let go, let go, let go. It’s still singing in my head, and I don’t know what I’m holding onto that I need to release. I know that I’m going to take the hottest shower of my life because even with the pulsing adrenaline of the fastest pedaling legs I’ve ever pushed towards home with, I still can’t feel my toes, and the top most surface of my skin is burning ice. Wanting to scream. Holding it in. Let go, let go, let go. Waiting for the right moment to say it all. Until then, splaying my heart, my soul, my guts, innards, most vulnerable parts, across the intricate gridding of these finely traveled streets. Vintage details speaking to the oldest soul I possess. Feeling a smile of triumph but knowing that even if it filled my entire face that it’s almost entirely concealed by the blank canvas of my mask. And that’s how things are but that’s not always how things will be. The problem might lie in that being a problem for us though. Is it such a bad thing if this is how things remain? Loving the streets in which we’ve cried ugly tears while bearing witness to the hardest truths this world has to offer? It all coincides so poetically. And if that escapes you then I can’t hold you in my highest regard the way that I once thought I could. I’ll still be in love with everything you’ve ever touched.

October 23, 2020

I think of all the beautiful places you led me to, and I’ve just always assumed that it was you who steered me into seeing. I didn’t think I knew how to search for meaning in abstract places before you. So when you told me that that was a practice better suited for me than for you, it made me wonder who has been mirroring who all these years? Where did the inception of the idea originate, in which body? I took for granted that I was reflecting your actions because in your presence I was reduced to energetic mumbling, a halfway expression of an idea out of fear that the entire thing would be too much to conquer in the presence of another. For that matter, it might be too much for even myself. Easier to downplay it all and stay small. Easier to let you lead, or so I thought, in this dance.

When I was 8, I was at the neighborhood pool with my dad. Another girl about my age was having trouble wading in the deep end. I myself had just learned, but was managing. I remember her trying to keep her head above water. The way she was quietly struggling reminds me of stories where children were drowning and the adults didn’t even realize it. I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt me, but when she used my head as a flotation device, I myself fell under the surface and swallowed a mouthful of chlorine. My throat burned. Without the presence of my mother, I stayed a bit more hardened. I told my dad what happened and he gave me a lemon to suck on, which helped, surprisingly, with the pain. He expressed his sentiments of flawed children in an even but hintedly sympathetic tone. I felt like he was talking to me as a fellow adult, not as his daughter. Like two comrades exchanging notes after a street fight. Nothing ever came of it.

When I’m drawn into the magnetism of someone’s dark cloud, it no longer suits me the way it used to. I still empathize, because it was so recently that I was that embodiment of a dark cloud. Like it was yesterday, I couldn’t unstick myself from the feeling of helplessness, the glazed over eyes, a thick tongue incapable of forming coherent sentences. I see those people, and I recognize them immediately. But it doesn’t feel fair to intimately subject myself to something I’ve just barely overcome. I think of that girl trying desperately to stay above the surface of the water, pulling me down with her so that she could survive when really, I had only just acquired the means to take care of myself. I think of this, and I think that it ought to have been me leading this dance all along, deciding when to walk away from the partnerships that begin to pull me under the surface when I want to be moving towards the light.

It takes a concentrated effort in order to unroot from the heaviness of suffering. On a bad enough day, it might feel like you’re wrapped in a plastic bag, conforming to you all the more aggressively as you try to breathe and move. Like hiding under your thickest winter comforter, eventually you’ll breathe enough cycles in your confined space of darkness that you’ll begin to feel a panicking urgency, you’ll realize that you’re stuck there and you’ll want to come out. Like being trapped under the surface of the water, held there for so long that you freeze. Certainly, the oppressor is at fault whether they realize it or not. Whether or not that little girl at the pool intended to stay above the water expressly at my expense, the truth is that she was unable to float without suppressing my own means to swim in the process. 

So why does it become the responsibility of the oppressed to be strong enough for both parties? Why does the person who has already worked so hard, already learned to unearth their truth from the decay of their own stagnant sadness, why does this person suddenly have to do the same for someone else? It’s somehow expected of the “stronger” person, then, to help the weaker one along. If they don’t, they’re considered insensitive, selfish, cold. But if it makes me risk everything I’ve made, this long journey from the nothing that I once believed I was, how am I to justify that? Especially for someone who doesn’t see themselves as worthy?

We all show up to the table of self-realization at different moments. This can’t be rushed by someone else’s timeline. In fact, witnessing someone else’s successes in too close a proximity might make the person who isn’t as far along feel inferior, causing them to then rely on the more advanced one to lead the way. But shouldn’t we each be leading our own way, ultimately?

October 21, 2020

The subtle variances of the rush. I wish there was a way to capture the surge of electricity that we experience in the height of a profound occurrence, the way that we don’t quite know how to reason with the relevance of the event in real time but we can still feel it deeply. In that way we understand what it’s done to us before we can comprehend what this entity even represents. This rush doesn’t translate beyond the body you’re in. These are exclusive moments shared with the souls in attendance, and even then sometimes the effect escapes the ones most near.

I sat in my new friend’s living room in her apartment, in a kibbutz in northern Israel. She told me she had to work but that I should make myself at home. I showered and when I came out I immediately started messing with the dials on her 90’s style boom box. The kind I had in middle school with two cassette decks and a CD player. The radio came on, and usually I’d do everything in my power to avoid the mainstream vibe of a radio station. In this moment though, I was prisoner to whatever it offered because I had no CDs, no cassettes, and no auxiliary cord. The song had just started. Manchester Orchestra: The Silence, I later discovered. I took a step back from the boom box and felt the music fill the space in the same way that it filled my body, defining the atmosphere of everything I could see, touch, smell. I felt the heaviness of nostalgia seeping into my being, a nostalgia for a moment I had never experienced but simultaneously a nostalgia for every moment I had ever experienced. I felt the rush of emotion, vague but somehow clear enough to lean into. I felt the turbulence of love, falling for the moment the way that you melt in the presence of a charismatic smile. The same way you feel when you realize that the beautiful moment you’re sinking into will soon disappear, because everything is transient and nothing is permanent. Someone once said that if art is how we decorate space, then music is how we decorate time. That moment stretched into eternity and even now I feel it reaching halfway across the globe to catch me.

Sometimes you’ll fall into the flow of a movie and the story it’s offering, only to discover that the creators knew how to maximize the impact of the musical score alongside the element of surprise to alter your narrative consciousness and make you question everything you’ve ever believed you were. The sudden and unexpected turn of events, accompanied with a poetic wave of symphonies. The momentary hook when your mind u-turns onto itself and you see things for how they are, knowing only then that you weren’t doing that before.

There’s nothing more addicting than rolling laughter and the way that it captures you like a spell. The way that once you get going, you only fall deeper into the recesses of its magnetism. It’s a weakness of mine, like an achilles heel right next to my heart chambers, and it causes me to fall for the ones that make me laugh the hardest because then, maybe then, I can have full ownership of the rush that passes through me from a thunderous fit of laughter. If I stake my claim and profess my love for the object of my seeping joy, then maybe I can become the feeling. The feeling where words fail me since only every third word makes it out of my mouth coherently. Where breathing is still necessary but somehow it becomes secondary to the pull of brightness that rearranges my insides. Sometimes the rush comes as a direct result from a full-bodied sob, also uncontrollable, one bleeding into the next like lovers’ bodies tangled in sheets. 

Wish I could capture it, but the essence of the thing would be negated through its containment.

October 19, 2020

Unnamed emotions

I miss the casualness of close proximity with people you didn’t care for all that much. The practice of not having to seek out shared space, because it was constantly imposed on you. I miss it, because it implies that we were all much more available to each other in the physical realm, and sure, it activated this strange mechanism within us where we actually lacked empathy. Naturally, it made us listen to each other less because it was all too much. We didn’t have to be selective about who we spent our time with, because we really couldn’t be. I miss how it was, being close to people I couldn’t care less about. I can’t place my finger on the feeling, even. When I move, my body is filled with unnamed emotions that surpass my intellectual understanding of it. I equate this phenomenon to sadness, maybe depression, but that’s just because I don’t know any better. Sadness because any time I feel emptier than before, I assume it’s because I’ve lost something and that I must be in grieving. I don’t know what I’m mourning because I don’t know what it is that I’m in absence of. All I know is that I want something back that I feel like I’m missing, and I’d do anything to regain whatever it was that I maybe never even had. It makes me want to cry, but of course I can’t because it all feels too staged, pushing out tears with corresponding musical crescendos. It makes me wish I could go back to second grade, where everyone told me I cried too much, and tell the younger version of myself to keep letting it out or else she might reach an age where she’s forgotten how to partake in the ritual of release altogether. It will manifest in tension, pain, numbness, I’ll say. You’ll fluctuate between the three with little to no warning. Those physical states will chase you from social gathering to social gathering, and it’ll make you want to go home, wherever that even is, only to arrive “home” and find out that there aren’t enough doors in the whole place that you could close in order to feel the amount of alone that you want to feel. The ringing in your ears from yelling over extremely average music remains, but what’s more deafening is the silence, the space between you and everything around you. That’s when you realize you’re not at home at all, because you don’t know how to find it within yourself. No one ever taught you. It becomes easier,  after enough of these moments, to drown yourself in the noise of someone, anyone, else. I wish I could right now. The fact that I can’t makes me feel things, but I don’t even know how to explain them. There are no labels in this realm of response, just more feelings that reflect the feelings. And on top of the inexplicable downship of it all, there’s another layer of sadness because I don’t know how to meet myself here without wanting to create a solution that negates the problem existing in the first place. 

October 16, 2020

No one’s talking about the moments before. The staggering silence that precedes the occurrence itself, in the space where an accumulation of failures and small deaths and questions that echo into oblivion reign on high. The steady stream of mornings where your eyes open and you feel yourself awaken, but you fail to feel your consciousness enter your body so you lay there waiting for it to arrive only to find out that you might have to just move through the day in its absence. The seed of an idea appears behind your eyes, in the recesses of your mind, so quietly that you were barely able to catch it and write it down, so that you could read it the next day and poke infinite holes in it. No one’s talking about how long this goes on for, and if it will be put to good use. No one’s talking about how in that span of time we wonder if it’s worth it at all, and that other people will tell us that indeed, it might not be. 

In this void of apparent manifestation we insert ultimately meaningless pursuits because they prevent us from being alone with ourselves. Might as well, we tell ourselves, because the other noise has become too much to bear. We lack the patience to trust in something manifesting on a long enough timeline, and convince ourselves over that same long timeline that anything we have, anything we inherently possess within ourselves, must not be worth having because after all, we have it and there’s no inherent value in being us. This line of thought is all the more tempting when everyone around us is drawn into the same endless contribution of their own delicate, malleable, irreplaceable spirit, in the name of capitalist ventures that we never even experience the fruits of. Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, I’d follow my dreams but I don’t have the time. We’re taught it’s not the way things are done, and we begin to believe that just enough to have babies and tell them the same thing in some way or another. Even if our words express that they can do whatever they dream of doing, they look at the lives that we have built for ourselves, the limitations, the shortcomings, the quiet despair, and they wise up before we can do anything about it.

When we then witness someone arranging their lives around the things that truly hold weight, it looks like nothing is happening. The only way we have learned to track their progress is through measurable entities like income, “success,” capital, fame. So when the undefinable aspects of self begin to take form, it’s no different than realizing that when a train slows down, it’s actually accelerating in the opposite direction. We don’t even think about that, we just see the train moving towards point B less successfully than it was before. I think the magic happens in the quieter pursuits, where the train accelerates relative to another destination. It’s nearly impossible to detect if you refuse to admit to yourself that there might be another destination besides your limited understanding of a linear point A to point B. But the magic exists only in the redirection of normal, and that happens quite under the radar of human consciousness. I know this because we have all read the success stories after the fact: the autobiography of the rock and roll star. It’s like hindsight bias; once we know that a person has already become acclaimed, then we are much more likely to glean significance into the seemingly insignificant. While normally, if we saw a “regular” person doing extraordinary things, we might miss the point altogether, not realizing that the person we see is only the tip of the iceberg, a conduit for some grandiose idea that could ultimately save us all from ourselves. We lack the imagination that they possess, and so we try to teach them that there’s nothing good to come of pursuing your heart’s songs.

I’m calling bullshit though.

Because when we follow the clues along the trail towards our highest consciousness, it might take a moment for our form to be identifiable to anyone else besides ourselves. Indeed, it takes a long time to sound like ourselves at all. The gradual shift requires a recalibration in others that happens on a much slower timeline than even we ourselves experience it. (The only exception is with kindred spirits, for they share the sentiments you experience perhaps even before you are fully aware of them.) It’s opening the oven before the bread is finished baking, to witness a soul in transition. It’s a grown-out haircut that almost fits into a man bun, so you cut it back to its original style because you’re sick of looking in the mirror and thinking about what you becoming, but aren’t quite yet. You abandon yourself out of a fear that you aren’t on your way to anything. Like a fledgling bird that’s just learning how to keep its feathers in check, we won’t always don the appearance of collectedness. We cannot be masters of something that is always changing, and we should be in a constant state of flux if we are doing things right.

Indeed, it may take withdrawal from the external senses in order to become. In quarantine, there was much less pressure to feel any way besides the way we chose to feel. Despite extensive emotional and existential turmoil, we saw  choices rooted in authenticity. Influxes of shaved heads brought on by a desire to spend less time focused on that part of our anatomy. We learned to question the way that we used our hair historically as a presentational tactic rooted in gender identity and physical prowess. Fashion sensibility that took an entirely different turn as each of us discovered our favorite combinations of tops and bottoms, despite whether or not they “went together,” because they simply “felt right” as an ensemble. And we started doing this relationally too. Rekindling flames with the meaningful ones that we fell out of rhythm with in the rigor of it all. Abruptly ending relationships that perhaps would have stretched on for years longer. Relocating to physical spaces that reflected the environment we aimed to foster within ourselves. Then, when the world began to open up, so did our line of sight. And we felt more seen than ever. Instead of the distance we created between ourselves being a means of permanent division, it forced us to contemplate the fact that maybe we were always this similar after all.

October 16, 2020

When the violence within us collides with the transient layers and forms that we try on, we can simultaneously stimulate the intellect while embodying truth. The intention is to sustain the intersection of internal self and external projections of self, facilitating a world view of our own consciousness. The distance between the two entities is an illusion, after all, since some higher part of us is in possession of all relevant knowledge at all times. It’s crucial to hone in on narrowing the space between ourselves and that which exceeds our understanding of Self, and we must do this by expanding distally in relation to our most central points.

When we experience stress and trauma, however, it causes a contraction of the limbs towards the center as a protective measure. This way, we take up less space ourselves while creating more space between ourselves and everything around us, through sent messages that moments later turn up unsent. Through the introduction of a thought in a text message, followed by the tentative notion of a “nevermind.” The appearance of the space between entities is a construct, just a device that our minds use in order to make sense of who we are. This way, we can delineate varying entities as separate from ourselves, which is preferable to the sudden surge of input that might take place if we realized that there are truthfully no boundaries preventing our matter from overlapping with everything outside of ourselves. The truth of the matter is that the way things are surpasses our intellectual threshold, so we entertain an illusion of distance. We shrink-wrap our existence towards the nucleus of the Self, when really, the only way to break the narrative of trauma is to reach the most distal parts as far as they possibly can. We can’t think of the violence in the world until we have looked directly at the violence within ourselves. And only when we create discipline around that practice, will we experience freedom.

October 16, 2020

There’s a gradual unraveling of truth from lie with the linear passing of time. Like excavating a fossil, the more we reveal the more we know. In the presence of a lie, we begin to discover the dissonance, the space between, our beliefs and things as they really are. One available option is to continue to tell stories that support the truth we wished we were witnessing, even at the expense of what we are actually seeing. Craftily, and perhaps unconsciously, we might only show ourselves the parts of the whole that fall into alignment with the narrative we’ve already written, start to finish, in pen. We might even go so far as to re-conceal some piece that’s being shown to us if it makes us adamantly question what we thought we knew, what we took as a fully-formed idea that could be stowed away in a box in an attic somewhere, trusting that it would be just where we left it no matter how much time passes. 

Life is easier when we believe that each compartment of it can be indefinitely stored for safe-keeping, untarnished by our movement towards knowing. Maybe truths can live there for some amount of time, but grave danger lies in trying to cram lies into boxes where they don’t belong. Where they never belonged.

In the presence of truth, though, the more we dust away the layers concealing the form, the more we are sure of what we see. The truth has nothing to hide. We get to know the details of this thing, each one a confirmation of what we already believed. Nothing feels better than this. I think the most effective way to witness this revealing of a deep truth is over a long enough timeline that no question remains. There’s no question because we’ve taken as much time as we need to ask all the questions that might barricade us from the abundance of that truth. In the presence of Truth, there’s no such thing as too many questions, because each question is just another opportunity for this Truth to deepen its understanding of itself, and to witness itself in real time, in conversation with the souls that feed it. So if someone discourages your questions, continue to question. Furthermore, question the source of the discouragement. 

Question everything. Question it all, or else there’s no way we could arrive at the answer.

Questions over time yield truth. Sometimes that truth is just a cementing of what we already had. Sometimes the truth, though, states that what we thought was true no longer is, or maybe never was. Both resolutions are desirable, because they bring us closer to ourselves. They weave us more intricately into the fabric of consciousness so that we can hold within the fibers of our being anyone who needs holding, with no question. No question because all questions have already been asked.

October 13, 2020

In the process of taking other people’s truths as our own, we negate the experience of being in relationship to things. We remove ourselves from the street level land place ourselves in up-high rafters in order to have a more comprehensive view of the space we once inhabited, not realizing that no matter how much we learn about that space we see, that it’s no longer ours to have because we have removed ourselves from it. The distance between the space we see ourselves in and the space we inhabit is sometimes greater than we can fathom. It stretches beyond our capacity of understanding so far that we must eliminate the boundaries with our mind in order to maintain our sanity. And once we’ve wedged this divide between ourselves and the human experience, we lose the human aspects of ourselves, namely our intuition. In moments where our hands might know what to do, we freeze and wait for instruction. We lack the basic ability to read another soul’s language in real time, and we become victims to a deadened state of living where we stand in waiting, eager for the next set of instructions given to us by the feeble powers that be. And when someone asks you to step forward, when suddenly you find that they are actually waiting for your instruction, you use what you know, some composite of other people’s solutions, delayed many moments past their prime and transposed onto different circumstances, different beings, with a completely different impact. And when the thing betrays us, we feel lost. No longer do we trust the powers we once gave ourselves to. No longer to the ones who ask us questions look to us in confidence. No longer do we understand our mission, and no longer do we know what to do with our hands. We question if we ever did, or if someone robbed that knowing from us at such a young age that we have no recollection of our own innate strength and clarity. 

The only way to undo the cycle is to distance ourselves from the up-high place and get our hands dirty with sequences of mistakes, pain, and inconvenience. To risk the illusion of perfection in order to pursue truth. To question the comfortable things that we’ve been told would never betray us. To walk away from the warm embrace of habit, numbness, and codependency. Only then will we move forward of our own accord, with our own arsenal of solutions, able to reach out and touch everything we’ve ever been in relationship to because we remain as such.

October 9, 2020

the inconveniences of form

deviations from some normal, that is arbitrarily constructed based on a desire to dominate and oppress. 

selfishness and fear.

the undesirability of being something other than a set standard defined by what you see, read, hear, smell

how we respond, 

void of empathy

void of understanding

and then there’s no thread that binds the separateness of experience to the totality of mankind

and we remain alone

October 8, 2020

What’s your love language?

Mine is a mixture of carefully curated podcasts, coffee mugs I imagined you might drink from, smiles without witnesses, home cooking without recipes, kissing for hours, and time spent apart. It speaks less in words and more in strategically placed tableaus comprised of thrift store finds, pools of traveling sunlight, and clues left in walls from previous tenants in the form of screws and nails. It’s sending music with vague but poetically ominous lyrics, it’s elaborate dances, and it’s abstract poetry made with you in mind. My love language is quiet, but bold in its delivery. It doesn’t fit in any category you might see listed at the end of a personality quiz, because it molds to the object of love, a meeting of halves the same way that two harmonized bodies collide on that deeper-than-flesh level. It’s relentless, persistent, and doesn’t require anything in return for it grows on its own accord no matter how often it’s watered. 

October 7, 2020

Every time I change homes, I aim to lessen the gap between leaving myself and arriving. In the same way that I aim for my body to be a vessel for healthy and integrated expression, I aim for my presence to exude an adaptive clarity even as the elements outside of me shift. The adjustment period must decrease in order to afford me more time in my optimal nature. None of this happens by forcing but rather, by allowing myself to slip closer to a continuous stream of being. This alchemy of consciousness is a purposeful agitation, a periodic grinding down of the superficial layers in order to scrape closer to the essence of what it is that I’m trying to say in this life. It happens each time I leave and arrive, and in a similar regard both are constantly happening simultaneously within me, though the chapters are measured by the distances traveled and the locational pins dropped on maps. Each time my relational orientation to the external is altered, I reflect on the distances between myself and all the other souls in my field of perception. Just like I map the distances between different body parts, I see what combinations of pulls and anchors feel like resistance from a thing, or release towards it, or some complex arrangement of the two. I hold steady in my relation to the non-adjacent forces, and in fact, sometimes I feel a stronger energetic latching to these entities than I might if we were near, as if two distant bodies can still provide a remote sense of accompaniment through the long days in relative solitude. When something is singing to us in this way, it doesn’t indicate what note is being sung on a long enough timeline, and it says nothing about the emotional connotation tied to the song, but it does signify that there is noise in reference to the thing. We’re receiving feedback in real time. It gives us an opportunity to fluidly respond to said feedback, and determine what tier of intimacy best serves the moment we are in, what level of sharing we are willing to hold space for in order to validate that level of intimacy, but maintaining a malleable grip as to leave space for the turbulence towards this intimacy to take a new form. In that sense, one byproduct of this measuring of distances is a broader understanding of the all-encompassing spectrum of love, and our availability to the notion of receiving the varying forms of it ourselves. But the most important thing to note is the overflow of byproducts from altering the distances between things. In the body, when we create space, effort, form, engagement, in one side of the body, it sends currents of information to the corresponding distal parts on the other side of the body. No matter the distances covered, are constantly in relationship to everything we have ever touched, everything we will ever touch, and even the things that we will miss altogether in whatever realm of consciousness we are currently leaning into. Our perception of these elements is quite limited, but it doesn’t negate the overwhelming experience of knowing and trusting that we are held in this eternal net of wholeness.

October 5, 2020

It’s our job as artists to catch the currents of inspiration as they pass through us. Stop what we’re doing, write something down. Reach out to the person that crosses our mind. Put on the song that’s suddenly all we can think about, even after not hearing it in ten years. In that sense it’s always a full-time job, because there’s never a moment where we can put down our work and simply exist. It’s an integrated practice that never ends…not with a performance, a high-paying job, or retirement. It’s a voice you can’t shut off, that’s constantly telling you how you could make something better if only you did it yourself. It isn’t even about ego, it’s about contributing your authenticity in every corner of the world that you touch. Being an artist is a practice of constantly interrupting who you thought you were in order to ascertain who you were always meant to be. It requires endless missteps and moments where you’re convinced your contribution is meaningless.

The space we need the most help navigating is the echo after the thought. Because it’s an echo, there’s inherently no new sounds being contributed to the overall landscape we’re consuming, and that makes it appear as a deafening silence, which we then interpret as a lack of some integral thing that’s required if we’re to move forward. An echo is a residue that lingers long after the thought occurs. It indicates the recent offering of a seed, and that seed requires nourishment if it’s to turn into anything. There’s no changing the echo once it’s set out on its path. Once the seed is planted it’s our job to extract the most poignant elements, add emphasis in order to draw out the complexities of the form. We aren’t actually inflicting change on the entity itself, we are just choosing where to steer the gaze of the viewer in order for them to see things as we do. 

What’s it like to witness flow? The more I write the more I feel distanced from the effortlessness that initially struck me when I began this project, not knowing what it was but feeling an overwhelming turbulence that pressured me forward in a very particular direction. The more I write, the more fearful I become that I don’t have the capacity to steer a ship this big. That maybe there’s so much, too much, to say and that it might consume me instead of me consuming it. I think I ought to let it consume me if I aim to bask in the flow of the elements. I think that means relinquishing any lick of control I believed I still held despite contradicting evidence. 

The difference between understanding and experiencing is paramount. It’s everything, actually, because I’ve witnessed an overwhelming urge in myself to understand everything. I know I’m not alone in this. It begs the question, what happens when we finally understand it all, assuming that there’s some place in which we might conscientiously reside that looks that way? If mastery of the notion of understanding is untenable and ultimately meaningless, should we waste our time trying to understand anything at all? I’m not suggesting we get dumber. But rather, that the more vehemently we try to understand a thing, the worse we get at actually experiencing it, and that maybe that means we are missing the point entirely. Because if we fail to experience life then what’s actually happening in the first place? 

When we witness flow within ourselves, it’s a fine line. In attempting to witness it at all, we are attempting to understand how it works so that we can recreate it in the future. We unknowingly imply that something about that flow state we’ve seen is “right,” and we aim to hit the mark again and again, which deteriorates the form of the original entity in all its glory. It’s not so different from the practice of observing the breath without attempting to change it. Inherently, what we see when we watch our breath will vary from day to day/moment to moment. If we always tried to make our breath say the same thing, we’d be doing it a disservice because it’s an ever-changing thing that’s responding in real time to the forces at work. The moment we attempt to offer input, we are unknowingly asserting ourselves as the experts of our breath, the masters of a thing that cannot be contained. If something is ever-changing, can we ever really understand it completely? I think if we are able to surrender the desire to know, we can bathe in the sentiment of becoming.

There was a day where I was overcome with madness over there suddenly being witnesses to our flow. When it’s just the two of us, one thing comes effortlessly from the thing before it. Interrupting that divinity contradicted my drive to be close to you. I felt the arrangement of things unraveling and suddenly it wasn’t you that stood before me, but some stranger with your same face, hands, stride. I’d never felt more alone, because it gave me a second too long to begin to analyze what I did and didn’t know, and that’s never something I had to ask before that moment. Somehow I knew who you were to me only until I tried to understand it.

October 5, 2020

Unknowingly indentured to the middle school teachers who doubted my ability to translate the world into words. Measured by my capacity to skirt the lines of an MLA standard with grace, my voice was equated to a shotgun, my words the ammo, loaded, shot onto the paper with minimal precision…according to the eyes who were only accustomed to interpreting the experiences of those who resided inside a skinny box, a limited list of parameters that neglected to include enough room for the individual, the artist, the soul-dier. All this time the words were locked, loaded, and stalled within the body of my being, waiting for the appropriate context to express the way I saw things. Thinking that my perspective lacked…perspective. All this time. All this time no one told me that my words were the threads with which I could bind myself to the infinite mirrored expressions of me.

Dancing outside feels the same. Suddenly my world is void of edges, and I can extend my arms as far out as I can imagine without hitting any hard stops. Even though the same movement might be possible inside small rooms without any collisions…something about the way it feels is different. Limitless. Like my form can go on forever merging with its surroundings instead of clashing with them, because I’m no longer confined to one space, one voice, one way of existing. Maybe I never was, not even in my middle school history classes where somehow I couldn’t manage an A because my writing skills weren’t up to snuff. Confinement is an illusion when it comes down to it, a social construct. How can we possibly believe we are confined by anything but our own minds, our perception of reality? Writing is an infinite landscape inside which I can express to you how I color my world. In that right it’s impossible for me to be wrong.  It’s not really your place to decide that.

But I do want you to know the colors I see, because then maybe you’d understand how hard it is for me to believe that you might not meet me with the same love that I have for you. If you saw this world, my world, and the way in which you inhabit it, you’d see that there’s no other way besides a bleeding of those colors, yours into mine, dissolved but somehow still visible as two steadfast entities that form an unshakeable union. Maybe now that I know my eyes see Truth, it’ll be easier for me to lead the way by example.

We all belong to each other. The things that divide us are just as much a lie as the things that contain us. Our only container is what we believe we aren’t capable of. So the moment we shed that limitation, it becomes undeniable how much we all need each other. How much we all share. So I can tell a story about a great love and even if you don’t know the object of that affection, something deep within you tells its own story with the help of my words. Not because we are different, but because we are so very much the same.

The greatest love I’ve experienced is the one I found for myself. I never thought I’d be the kind of person who would say something like that and mean it. It was ingrained in me from a young age that my impulses were something that needed to be managed instead of understood. It took years of stifled expression before I came to recognize the potency of my own voice, that the reason it seemed unrecognizable is because there was, in fact, nothing else like it. Which is an asset. An asset that could potentially save someone’s day or life if it were out there for that someone to access. I feel them asking silent questions about the answers I’ve found in my solitude. I think of all the time I wasted in hiding, and I’m certain that there’s more of us out there. The more I discover my style of movement, language, love….the more sure I become. And the more fixated I become on providing myself with the exposure necessary to reveal more truths. It’s like shading in a painting of a landscape; it existed feasibly without the added dimensions, but once you see the richness you’ve added, it’s impossible to go back to wanting things to be the way they were.

October 3, 2020

What does it mean when you don’t miss someone the way you think you should? Or maybe a better question is, what does it mean when you do miss someone more than you’re supposed to and it distracts you from everything you thought you were starting to believe? I think about the loves in my life and I think about the way we used to have Myspace top 8’s. I think of how you’d have one good night with a person and move them to #1, only to find out that they may or may not have done the same for you. I think about the loves in my life and I think about how for some people, it only takes a little bit of bait on their part for me to forget all the other stories anyone else has told me. It only takes a few words for me to move them into that first place slot. And then, just because you told me you missed me, and I fell apart from the inside, I realized that I miss you in a paramount kind of way. And in case I didn’t realize that completely, I realized it when another love sent me the same exact words and I only wanted to reply with gratitude instead of by mirroring the same sentiment. I think things become clear when you’re asked to delineate who you do and don’t miss. I usually don’t miss my mother. When she says it to me a part of me shrivels up because I know she’s expecting me to “me too.” I don’t miss people that treat me right, a lot of the time. A lot of the time. But I’m always stuck missing the ones who give me just enough rope to hang myself. And it makes me feel like I’m deceiving the ones who probably deserve me, because even though it isn’t anywhere close to cheating, isn’t that also exactly what it is? What does it mean to miss someone at all? Or maybe a better question is, what does it mean when you don’t miss someone at all?

October 2, 2020

I put on a song today, or rather, a song came on shuffle today, that reminded me of being in love with you. Meaning, I listened to a song today that sounded like you, like the long rides home on the train from your apartment. Like the times we danced together at clubs and were more drunk on each other than anything else. Like the subtle soundtrack behind the long texts you sent. It reeked of you, the way your cologne mixed with your deodorant mixed with your detergent mixed with your morning breath and your sheets. It sounded like all the things I wished you would have said to me, the details so etched out in my head that I can’t remember if you actually did say those things or if I just imagined the words so many times that I could recite them back to you now, all these years later. It felt no different than the nights we stayed wide awake in the dark, lying next to each other, the moments threaded with a delicate tracing of fingers on skin and a whisper of “we shouldn’t do this,” though we always did. I put on the song and it all flashed before me, under the surface of my skin as if the magnitude with which I once loved you could cancel everything that’s happened since then. But the funny thing about it is that you don’t even know this song, you’ve never even heard it. All this time I assumed the song was you and you were the song but really, this was an exclusive dramaturgy that no one ever saw except me. 

Do you ever experience something so often, so intensely, that you forget it’s only ever existed in your head?

Do you think that we can be nostalgic for something we have never experienced before? Is it possible to detect that something is missing from you when you’ve never had that thing in this lifetime? The French way of saying “I miss you” translates to “you are missing from me.” I think we can feel those voids without even knowing we’re feeling them. We can just tell something isn’t that that ought to be and then we can feel the space it leaves behind in its absence. I think that’s the inexplicable flutter you get when you meet someone, recognizing that they’re the answer to a question you didn’t even realize you were asking. It’s not “love at first sight” as that phrase is conventionally understood. It’s more of a literal receiving of love at…not first sight, because you’ve known this thing was missing from you deep down. It’s love, returning. When you get that feeling it’s a part of the collective fabric of consciousness being stitched back together. And if it’s that, then that means every person we meet is another love mending the seams of humanity.

October 1, 2020

Not sure what I’m writing or why I feel called to write it but I know that there’s something to be said for the voices in my head and the rarity with which I let them speak out loud. I think I have something to share, many things actually. I feel fearful that most people won’t care about it, and that that in itself will get me questioning who I am and whether or not this world needs “more people like me.” I’ve never been very much like other people. For a long time that deteriorated the image I held of myself. It’s like learning a language that no one else knows, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 29 years. There’s no guarantee anyone will ever want to learn this language. But the older I get the more I realize that there’s something much more beautiful about the things we don’t understand, might never understand, and that the unknowing is what wakes us up in the morning. There are certainly knowns that get my feet to hit the ground: coffee, namely. But when I think about my will to live, I think about the capacity I have to love and the potential there is that I might meet many other people throughout the course of a single day that will allow me to refract my own love light back onto myself. I think that’s the thing that gets us to a place…knowing that there’s a love out there that receives each of us.

I was talking to a person who loves me today about how you soak a jar overnight in order to peel the label off with less effort. That we face the decision to inflict conflict upon ourselves over the mundane occurrences in life, and so often we choose to put ourselves through something that resembles a punishment. We think we’ll grow to be the greater person because of it. But then when it comes to the challenges that define us as our most fateful trajectory, we take the anything-but-high road in order to avoid facing the possibility that we can’t actually do the thing we want most to do. We’ll sit there all goddamn day and scrub that label so that we feel like nothing can pierce our soul’s armor, when really, all it takes is one sideways glance, one “no,” one question we can’t answer and then we spend the rest of the day feeling like our value is negligible. We might even spend the rest of our lives that way if we’re so (un)lucky. All because we spent the bandwidth on the scrubbing of the label that was destined to flake off on its own accord. It’s all a matter of timing, really. Some of us sit on our asses past our prime, waiting for someone to take our hand and tell us it’s time to step up. Others of us, though, push the envelope on timing because we get a sense that we are missing out on our lives. We say yes to everything, to much too much, so much so that the noise silences the meaningful occurrences as they grace us. We feel a call to action and we  act on whatever’s in front of us even if it’s the wrong person, the wrong task, the thing that screams dissonance, because we want to prove to ourselves and to everyone else that we have value. That there’s a reason we are alive. Ironically, this frantic searching for purpose distracts us from the quiet prodding deep within us that nudges us in the direction of truth. We busy ourselves with the soulfully mundane in order to avoid facing the gravity of what we’re here to carry out. It scares me that we could go our entire lives without knowing what that even means, leaving our world scarred like a painting void of the color blue. I think what scares all of us is the necessary silence before the profound coming into our own skin. We don’t know how long that soaking will need to take place before the deciding of character unfolds. On some level we are unwilling to trust it either. We don’t want life to happen to us, we try to happen to life instead. I don’t even know which one is preferable at this point, but I do know that whenever I try to exist by means of proving myself, I feel further from myself than ever.