Love. Hate. Observe.

I piled my clean laundry on the bed and for a moment or two i just stood... before an empty chest of drawers...
Oh my god.
For one full year I have been living out of a suitcase. I've used the occasional shelf in a shared closet or hotel, but this was something else.
My drawers.
A bedroom that was allocated to me with clean beautiful linens and lamps.
'Zani's room' in my parents new San Diego house.
I was HOME home... although I historically call everywhere "home" and tend to abide by the Edward Sharp and Magnetic Zeros mantra and lyrics from my own song which essentially say that home is wherever you decide it is. I am a big believer that reality is what you make it...

Though here I am in San Diego, California with my clothes inside drawers, having a surprisingly difficult time adjusting.
A "rocky re-entry" as I explained to Aaron in a text this evening.
I guess I am making this hard for some reason.

I left India almost 2 weeks ago with stops in England and San Francisco on my way here to San Diego for Christmas.

The customs officer in San Fran looked over my immigration form and whistled. "Whoa. That's quite a world trip you've been on" reading over my list of seven countries I'd visited on my trip prior to entering the US.

I stepped out into the crisp California air and was reunited with my travel companion, Baba Aaron... I felt so happy to see him and his beautiful wife Amber and excited to get to spend a few days in the city that inspired the Mowgli's theme song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkjLejHz0DM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

San Francisco

I spent two glorious days between the murralled alleyways of the mission district, experiencing San Fran with virgin eyes. Thrift stores, street art and bohemian chic cafes everywhere you look.
My friends Laura and Jeremy took me to Cafe Gratitude- a beautiful eatery with $12 Eco salads with names like "I am Grateful"
I got a poor people bowl. It's this organic deliciousness sold by donation for the gypsies and hippies like me... For the people who translate the menu prices in to Indian rupees and get heart palpitations and break in to a cold sweat at the realization of their poverty.
I'll stick with water... Tap.
Laura told me that SF is the most expensive city in America. It flip flops back and forth with New York.
I feel slightly stunned and kind of appalled by it all.
I pulled a card off the table that just said
"what question is your life about answering?"

I like thinking about the question that is my answer to that question.

Points to ponder as I drifted around taco trucks and fat balding men in tennis shoes... hookers and street performers... A guy on bended knee making Christmas wreaths by hand among the buzz of cable buses and the smell of urine and thrift stores... Ahh the mission...

I passed a girl on a street corner who was balancing on a ball wearing a red party gown while playing accordion and a multicolor spinny hat, I felt less strange then I thought I would. My silky longcrotch Indian pants seemed to fit right in.

We stumbled into a cute thrift store called gems & jetsam.
jetsam is what you throw overboard off a boat and what I felt like floating around this city. As laura rang up her earrings i watched them use an iPad for their clerk-stand and I almost lost my mind at how fancy that was.
Laura laughed and said "a lot has changed in a year, Zani"

I was late to meet jeremy for Bikram yoga class - I marched through the hood down mission street - my mouth watered at cantinas and taquerias. I forgot about how strong the mexican influence here was.
The class was ironically and interestingly taught entirely in Spanish. It was actually incredible- i had no judgement and found total focus. It felt so so good to sweat and move my stiffened travel weary body around.

That night I went to an amazing house party at Aaron & Amber's and met a tribe of San Fran love beings... My kind of people.
I felt like I was gonna be okay back in America.
I felt comfortable even though I was tired and doing my best to stay focused and engaged in conversations at times.

Next thing I knew I was on a san diego bound plane beside a perfectly put together blonde girl with a leather jacket and pearl stud earrings. I instantly felt the vibe of where I would be landing.
Whoa.

My parents and little sister picked me up at SD International with their little fluff ball puppy and took me home to gin and tonics and excited unpacking and present passing out.... Singing with my sister... Dancing around retelling stories and showing treasures I acquired on my journeys.

I woke up the next morning to an email from a fireman and looked out the window to see a huge house fire a block up from my parents house... tons of sirens engines blowing by the house.
It had been 9 years since our last fire.
Eerie.

My environmental activist sister had us all watch a movie called "Food, inc." which blew my mind.
Please watch this.

A few days were spent doing nothing basically. Surrounded by expensive cars, rich neighborhoods... Things started getting harder and harder. I saw people having freak outs over the silliest things. I saw every single person at a red light angrily pull out phones and start texting as though they couldn't have one moment without something to do. No stillness... No smiles...
Suddenly i was getting freaked out. Suddenly i felt like a freak freaking out....
Suddenly being a vegan is weird, my clothes are weird, my style is bizarre. I feel like a mermaid without an ocean even though I stare out at the pacific every day.

I definitively, righteously, and somewhat suicidally decided not to participate in this society... I decided to protest having a car, until I got tossed the keys to one... I decided to protest getting an cell phone until the solstice fairy (my mom in a red hooded cape) handed me a new iPhone with a paid plan.
I mean... I can talk to my phone and she talks back! She has a name!! I freaking love this thing! It's amazing.

Today I woke up at 6am, practiced yoga and sat in the living room with my dad talking for a few hours, further unscrambling my current disconnected sadness and making plans for my future.

I have a vision... A beacon...
I want to be a nurse.
A palm reader in India affirmed this for me last month.
I know I can make a difference in the world in so many ways and everything is guiding me to do it... Now I just have to work out logistics.

I accompanied my dad to Trader Joe's, arguably the best grocery store in this part of the world.
We walked the aisles talking to each other and of course to strangers. I've watched my dad love strangers my entire life...
He made a red headed woman blush and touch her heart, flattered by a compliment my dad gave her. I know he made her day.
Later on, in the checkout line, he started talking to a lady in the adjacent line about religion.
"ya know," he said to this woman as our Christmas champagne was rung up "it's not about how much you go to church. It doesn't matter how many rosaries you do. If there is a day of judgement at the end of all this, I believe the only thing that will be asked is 'did you love your fellow man?'"

I thought that was so cool.

We walked back out to his jeep, our arms full of groceries. I commended him on his ability to love everyone. His way he can make friends and make people feel special.

"I honestly believe I could have gotten along with Sadam Hussein." he said merrily.

I don't doubt it.

This is one reason why I really love to be home. I come from this amazing inspiring family...
(one tick mark for the love side)

We continued on our errands to another store. I made note at an intersection red light how every single person seems to have to entertain themselves as soon as they stop. They pick up phones or change the radio, get out a new CD, pull down the mirror and start inspecting themselves... From the time they wake up to time they sleep its GO time.
I know i used to be like this.
We never stop and just sit with the nothingness, breathe and just be still.

Everything is so so so rush rush rush. But WHERE are we going?
There is no such thing as late or early or "needing to be somewhere."
You already are there.
You're THERE!
It boggled my mind.

A clerk said "hey sweetie. Careful. Floor's slick."

Sweetie? That's sweet. I actually kind of appreciate the saccharine overly sweet communication here.

I looked around at every person with their own carrying bags as to avoid using plastic. I appreciated those efforts too.

Then i found myself trying to avert my eyes in the meat section (which always has made me vom) ... I stood in the aisle and just stared at the package in front of me.
"Injectable Butter"
First I laughed then my forehead furrowed and finally as I was shaking my head in disbelief I heard my dad down the meat aisle talking animatedly to a very old Yugoslavian man who could hardly believe that he could speak a few phrases in his native language. It was such a cute exchange.

We passed aisle after aisle of expensive excess... Shit we don't need but say over and over again "I need this."

Stores are tough for me.
Seeing unbelievable waste and consumerism is pretty heart wrenching after living in third world Asia for nearly a year.

Later on i was walking down to buy my sister and mom $5 soy chai lattes at coffee bean while they waited in a line of 30 people to buy a gift.
I passed a store called Z gallery. There was a line to get in. A red velvet rope holding back the crowds. Everyone was waiting to buy buy buy.
"at least theyre not shooting people again like they did on black friday" my mom said as I returned and produced their drinks.

I cried a lot today.

I am figuring out how to go about getting this degree and still being able to travel and be free... I have gypsy blood that can't run cold or I am scared a piece of me will die somehow.

How do I exist in a country that I have such a love/hate... Soothing/skin crawling... Experience with?

To be continued...

O.W.L

Today I am in San Francisco after ten months abroad.
I am finding my feet back on American soil, somewhat disoriented but mostly just stunned by the joylessness in so-called "first world countries."
San Francisco is significantly better then gloomy London, which was my last stop en route back from Rishikesh, India last week... I nearly fell over on the cold wet cobblestone streets my first day back, when i realized that a bag of roasted chestnuts from a Waterloo Bridge street vendor cost the same as three nights accommodation in our lovely North Indian guesthouse.

I spent the last several months in such stark opposition to the world i am in today... Although i fully recognize how fortunate i am to be surrounded by this gorgeous city, among street art and skyscrapers, reunited with amazing friends i've been away from for too long... I still feel worlds away.

My heart is still nestled in the chaotic celebration of life that is India... Far from this sterile wealth of the western world.

It was last month, back in the curry flavored confetti explosion of a country that is India, where I was lucky enough to meet Joey - a bounding bright light of pure enthusiasm. Incredibly wise for his age, you can tell after knowing him for one day that he is a motivated guy who lives with purpose.

I, a self-proclaimed gypsy, travel around the world and find my reflection constantly in the eyes of like-beings. Those who have been drawn to explore the same remote parts of earth... And thus a new tribe of instantly beloved friends always seems to appear along my travels.
In Rishikesh we formed a crew quickly and all fell in love with one another.

Upon meeting Joey, he invited me to come be his photographer at the local orphanage.
"Ramana Gardens" is the beautiful home for children tucked in the hills that hang above the sacred Ganges River.
I had already heard about Ramana Gardens and was eager to go see it, so excitedly I agreed to accompany my new friend- this prince of positivity - to the orphanage.

He humbly explained to me on the long walk through the town and across the monkey riddled bridge that he and his friend had a non-profit project to bring children sized lacrosse sticks to kids in poverty stricken countries. He'd already hit South Africa, Argentina and Thailand, and this day I got to witness the magic of his project in India.

The orphans dove right in to Joey's massive blue duffle bag and started unwrapping the 20 or so short lacrosse sticks and green rubber balls. As all kids do, they were temporarily more interested in the mesh net that the ball came in and the packaging they discovered they could wear like costumes, then actually learning to play this new foreign game, but soon Joey was in action... Like the Pied Piper, leading a trail of growingly excited children through the orphanage grounds and out to a dilapidated field surrounded by broken building rubble and garbage.

There, on this makeshift lacrosse field, Joey taught the wide eyes orphans about a game that he clearly loves and I know nothing about... So while taking photos, I also got to learn about this relatively easy team sport through the beginner eyes of the kids.

Tossing the little green balls in the air and catching them again in the net, I saw a moment of metaphor. The net we Americans get to play with - and the safety net we live above... Sometimes it feels like we walk around in the U.S. with such amazing safety nets, baby-proofing throughout our lives.
Even paralleled in safety precautions and rules that don't exist in third world countries.
Here in India, the kids hoisted themselves up and over rusted gates and scaled rooftops that seemed to crumble beneath their feet as they climbed around retrieving lost balls.
There was so much joy though.
The children were picking it up quickly and you could see the sea of confidence and capability wash over each one. Joey threw them over his shoulder and tickled them when they cheated.

A part of me started to wish I was young again and then watching Joey I realized that it's a choice for us "grown ups"- we actually have an advantage for carrying a young heart because we also have our wisdom too...

I really like that Joey's project is called O.W.L. (One World Lacrosse)... The owl to me is a symbol of wisdom but also is a free wild bird that flies and soars like a soul in love. Such a great symbol of their mission! Wisdom and light hearted joy.

The inspiration from being with Joey at Ramana Gardens that day came in several different ways for me.
But mostly, i was being inspired at the ambition to create this non-profit... To live with an altruistic direction and drive... Not to mention, the joy and positive energy it is all birthed from.
I am really just so impressed with the project and excited that I got to help and be a part of it in my small way.

Since I have been back from India I have been seeing owls everywhere- painted on murals in the mission district... On t-shirts and business cards and art in my friend's homes.

I think it keeps popping up to remind me what is so easy to forget... To play and to be a kid... To be like the owl, light-hearted an wise... And to give back every chance I get.

What is a love ninja?

What is a love ninja?

It all started a few years ago in the days of the Bronson House. A group of my brilliant artist friends and family lived in an old hollywood hills mansion house together. It was like what the OM hOMe became in Venice, but within the walls lived film makers & photographers instead of musicians... and it seemed to function really really well.
My friend Wyatt lived in the back house/garage area.
It was about the time that 'Alice and the White Hair' - his vision of an Alice & Wonderland rendition through the eyes of an LA burning man-vibed artist, took life!
Everyone in the house worked on this short film in one way or another... Producing, acting, camera operating, editing...
I remember getting a screening of the almost complete film for about 8 of us in the Bronson house one night. It blew me away.
I bounced up and down and asked for more more!
Dave brought in a music video he had just made for Edward Sharpe & The magnetic Zeros - a band I would come to love and who would play a part in inspiring my entire house full of musicians to become what they are.
All I knew at the time, was that Dave had created an eerie, magical and of course insanely inspiring piece of art for a dark but somehow liberating sounding "desert song"...
Everything these guys created made my heart sing and my head spin.

Before my husband and I split up, we spent basically every weekend at the Bronson House with our tribe of inspiring friends - getting artistic and weird- going for nature walks at night under the Hollywood sign and basking in the love for one another.

For years I was inspired to go to the Burning Man Festival. (my older sister Lara went when she was at UC Berkeley and I was still in high school). I was always pulled and especially intrigued by stories and pictures shared at the Bronson House.

In 2009 was I think the second ever Lightning in a Bottle festival. Jamie had no interest in going, but last minute I dove into a car with Ross, our brother and Jamie's future best friend/business partner who actually played 'The White Hair' in Wyatt's film and lived in the big room upstairs at Bronson in those days.

We arrived at this incredible art festival tucked in the Santa Barbara Mountains. (everyone referred to it as a mini burning man in the forest)...
We got there at night and searched for the stage carrying all of out stuff. I think Bassnectar was onstage and Ross somehow lead us to all of our friends who were in the artist camp where we started to pitch our tent and then quickly abandoned the idea and chose to sleep in Angela's tent.
Ang is the goddess of the Bronson tribe- and the only girl to ever live in that house. She was the inspiration for me that it was possible to do such a thing later on down the road in Venice.


I remember Angie's tent was this little nest of love- draping scarves and candles... A total zen zone.
She instructed us to throw our stuff down... Grabbed us both by the hands and we made our way to dance to the dirty dubstep music bleeding out of the Do Lab speakers built into a wooden masterpiece of a stage.
The Do Lab, I came to find out, were throwing the whole event and were who I was camping with.

One morning, I saw Linda. The beautiful European aerialist, dancer, poet and performer coming out of her big mama tent which was next to ours...
Linda and I shared her breakfast, talked about dance and bonded... That night I watched her perform on the big stage in all white with crazy glittering white laser beam lights and a crew of aerial acrobats tumbling through the night sky.

These were magic people.

It seemed that everything everybody created was there for the sake of heightening your experience and causing your jaw to drop onto the dusty festival floor in wonder.

One night, Angela, Ross's two sisters and I were searching through the dark without a flashlight for our camp which at that point was all but gobbled up by a sea of tents extending every which way.

The big oak tree that hung above our camp seemed illuminated for some reason in the pitch black moonless sky.
As we got closer we found, as if by magic, our tent was literally glowing.
Astounded, we sat there forever staring at the tent discussing how and why it could glow... After much deliberation, we definitively decided that it was bat guano.
I was sure I had heard somewhere that it glowed and it seemed the only logical answer (believe it or not.)
Meanwhile Ross's two sisters were already smearing whatever was splattered on our tent with their hands and drawing shapes with the glowing fluid on eachother's skin.

Moments later Wyatt walked by.
I grabbed him and pulled him over to show him the weird magical bat poo.

"Oh. You mean the glow sticks I broke open and poured on your tent so you could find it in the dark? Ha. Bat poo. Nice one."

A typical experience at an event like this.
Everyone is just loving one another. Making everyone else's experience all the more amazing.

The next night one of my best childhood friends, Miss Cary and Sean Tudor, another Bronson house resident, who would become one of my closest friends, arrived and the adventure continued to unfold and evolve like the ever present giant lotus flower towers... Huge gorgeous structures made of wood and fabric that billowed in the wind.

I didn't even know it could get better.

We found these soft amazing swings surrounded by zen zoneness and low lighting. I don't remember what we talked about on those swings but it remains in my mind as a phenomenal conversation.

I think it was that night, sitting by the bonfire at out camp- i was talking about love as an anti-venom to hate and fear, greed and anger.... Recalling how my mother gad taught us girls how to wave and smile excitedly if someone cuts you off on the freeway because they think that they know you and feel badly.
"kill everyone with kindness" she'd say.

Wyatt dubbed me the Love Ninja.

He named me and knighted me on my shoulders and head just for fun. I loved it.

Later that year I'd experience Amma, the hugging guru who has hugged over 14 million people I think.
Receiving Darshan from her was like getting electrocuted- shock-waves of love pulsated through me and out the back of the densely crowded room.

It was such a powerful, reinforcing reminder and personal proof of what I believed in.

I went to Burning Man (sans hubby again) later that summer full of belief, trust and an open heart.

It was on the Playa that year - my first time there- that my world flipped upside-down.
I met a new tribe of people and ended up coming back to reality (or 'the default world' as burners call it) only to part ways with Jamie and fall into a crazy year and a half of music, love, and complete disconnect with any reality at all... Creating the OM hOMe and witnessing the birth of The Mowgli's and The Collective.

We had an intention to create harmony- a truly bodhisattvic desire to lift tue hearts of everyone on the planet- spreading our positive vibration...

We got a little distracted by shiny objects for a while, but once I found my feet on the ground, i had this overwhelming desire to go travel around the world and actually meet everyone... And roundhouse love kick all who needed a judo hug.


So ya... I guess that's the story of how I became a self-proclaimed love ninja.

And what it means to me? Is to be committed to loving with wisdom and finding compassion for every being on earth... Killing with kindness, not killing.
Breaking down walls of anger and frustration and separation - trusting that we can evolve as a planet towards unity consciousness as one... Without violence.

And also remembering that I am a human. I forget. I lose the way and I get distracted... But it's okay because I choose to be surrounded by and attract light carriers who help show me the way and guide me back towards the goal, which is to love, love, love.

P.S. Guano doesn't glow.

On my way hOMe...

On my way hOMe

Lucy dropped me at Heathrow International in the dark.

Cold rain was angrily spitting down in the icy, early, morning.

We laughed (as we had all week) and made jokes (as we had for years) the whole way to Terminal 3, where I kissed her cheek and did my best to summon words of gratitude and love through my hungover, still half asleep state, heaving my bags onto the trolly outside her car and getting more and more soaked by the minute.


Charlie, Lucy and I laughed hysterically last night as we nibbled on our favorite Japanese rice crackers and drank gin & tonics in an Angel/Islington Blues Bar. The ceiling was painted with wild, abstract, multicolored images that looked to be Goddesses floating above our table of Goddesses.. and a seemingly mismatched motley crew of brilliant musicians formed a band on stage inches from where we sat.
The wailing saxophone seemed to bounce off the walls of the tiny bar, as the ever understated bassist looked like he was daydreaming, not even aware that he was on a stage, walking the songs like a master leading his dog on a leash. Lucy would be a bassist if she was a Blues musician- just looking cool, understated, and casual but crucially important to everything.
Charlie would be the drums I think- the room goes a little empty without the clatter of tempo and occasional smash of a cymbal that makes everyone go "ahhh!"
The girls would say I was the lead guitarist- flashy in an awful american way, overstated, clearly taking the lead and going off on guitar solos while everyone else rolls their eyes and keeps the melody going. (they love me nonetheless.)

She, Charlie aI love our band of babes.

Lucy said that Jamie's real band had played here recently, she thought. She had been on a building site and didn't make it to his show in the end but had received a facebook invitation from my ex, who would soon be returning to try living in London once again.

How weird, I thought, that the world has continued to exist and evolve as I've been away.
(I know that sounds silly, but it is a strange thought to me somehow).

Earlier that afternoon Charlie and I drank white wine from a box next to her Christmas tree that had all red decorations- lights, ornaments and baubles all red, just like her new hair color.

Charlie (the youngest, smallest member of our tribe of gnar-shredding, adventure Goddesses) was suddenly such a grownup... Much more then I was.
We decided to go to Tesco's market and make lunch/dinner in her elegant and sophisticated flat.
I remembered being a grownup like this when I lived in London... Making insane money for the simplest job in central London, navigating the tubes and train lines like it was no thing to get home to my beautiful house with a yard and gazebo that echoed like a million soldiers marching on tin when the rain would bucket down out of the perpetually gray sky.
My flatmates and husband used to hate the loud noise they heard as a nuisance and I absolutely couldn't get enough of it. Who CARES if it drowns out Eastenders or the X Factor?! English TV is crap anyways... This cacophony... This symphony of nature meeting manmade civilization gave me goosebumps every time I sat inside our gazebo extension, snuggled under a warm duvet and closed my eyes.

Charlie's massive flatscreen played MTV music videos, by my request. I just couldn't bear the sound of Ant and Dec or any of the awful Christmas programs on. I've been without television for so long it's become like the mind dulling drone of a mosquito on my ear when it's playing in the background at a house. How are people so desensitized to it? Now THAT is a nuisance of a sound!

At Togat Nusa, out in the Mentawais, John E says that there are two things that will never come to the island - a clock and/or a TV.

I. Freaking. Love. This.

"What time your flight tomorrow morning?" Charlie shouted over the music at the Blues Bar last night.

"Nah- remember? Zan follows the sun. She doesn't do conventional time." Lucy chirped in.

I put my pointer finger in the air as though I was testing the wind direction and joked that spirit had informed my third eye that the tailwinds would lift me and begin to carry me towards San Francisco in approximately 8 hours.

A few short hours later Lucy was on the edge of my sofa bed nook in her living room, waking me up. I was out like a light, completely dead to the sound of my alarm binging and bonging away next to my head.
Thank god for the Londoner lifestyle that gets people up in the dark regardless of the amount of G&T's consumed the night before.

I was out of practice.

My schedule is more along the lines of going to sleep after the sun has set and dinner is happily digested- waking up at sunrise to the sweet hands of light that come in through my window/tent/open hut wall and envelop the sleepspace with radiant rays, suggesting that I rise and shine in reflection- then sitting in bed and gonging my Tibetan singing bowl- meditating - maybe practicing yoga or doing a pancha karma routine - and then leisurely having Ayurvedic tea and breakfast.

This "rest" for a few hours, yank yourself up in the dark and slam your body into gear as you brave the icy, wet air and charge it for the day routine doesn't work for this little sun-guided hippie anymore.

I really like my mornings these days.
This bleak, December travel morning, I feel like I backhanded time and punched myself in the face... Not so much lulled to life as I've grown accustomed to...
But in all honesty, it was worth it to get last night with my girls.

Spending time with my London soul sisters was overdue and made my heart so so happy. We can and do talk about everything so openly and honestly and just fully support one another in the coolest way.

We made plans for a 2013 snowboarding adventure to Austria and a 2014 trip to Japan... Which should work out well on my way to or back from southeast Asia or india where I plan to spend half the year every year... I love how these girlfriends are up for traveling and adventure like me. They both came out to California when I moved back from London in 2007. (Charlie even went to Hawaii with one of my guy friends that she met in Mammoth a few years back)...
Lucy is on her way to South America for a 9 month backpacking journey with her boyfriend/best-friend/soul-mate Colin. He is seriously a gem and makes me ache a little bit for a partnership like theirs... But of course it's not so feasible when you lead a gypsy life like I do.

Lucy is a pro at calling me out for being a hopeless romantic and sometimes an emotional retard. She confessed that she wasn't entirely convinced I was even on the flight from Delhi that she picked me up from.
"figured you fell in love and ditched us for a fantasy love affair."

Am I THAT transparent? Ha.

Six days that flew by in the UK.
Six days that I very nearly cancelled to stay in love in India. I'm so glad my buddy out in Rhishikesh tenderly pointed out to me that six extra days in India would still never be enough. I'd still be sad to leave and have to tear myself from the arms of joy and bliss and that it was better to just get a move on and not miss my London loves!

Life keeps going on... And on... And on... Like the never-ending trail of moving walkways in Heathrow Airport.
We only recognize their movement- only take note of their purpose- or that they even exist, when we are on them, getting catapulted through life- and through the terminal.

We have a choice to just stand still and let the constantly moving belt move us along, or we can walk... Charge it down to our next destination, like I choose to do.

San Fran ahoy.

Sending love from Terminal 3 and from everywhere.

We are so lucky...

"We are so lucky"

The four words I wrote down when I opened my eyes up in this dark gray December morning...

"we are so lucky"

I woke up in icy Cheltenham, England in Aileen's warm, immaculately clean house. I was surrounded by soft turquoise walls beneath a big white duvet in a big white fluffy bed. Out the antique style cottage window i listened to the sound of cars splashing down Horsefair street- the street my ex-husband Jamie grew up on.
I can't believe I'm here.
The cars vroomed by and for some reason the words that came to mind as an echo to their noise was "Yes little engines that vroom. Motion. Movement. This is an amazing world. An amazing interdependent and totally impermanent world."

It had been three years since I came back to England. Some things have changed drastically and others haven't that much.

I am a single 27 year old woman with a bindi on my forehead... The dot on my third eye almost demarcating the mind full of endless colorful stories from living in Asia beneath the skin of my head.
The last time i arrived in Cheltenham, i was a 24 year old Californian wife who had never even been to Asia.
Aileen, Jamie's mum, is still a total Goddess who looked like she hadn't aged a day, but somehow instantly I felt closer to her then I ever did when Jamie and I were together. Seeing her, I remembered why her son turned out to be so fabulous.
Aileen and her best friend Vicki picked me up at the train station.
I didn't know if I was going to cry or not when I saw them, but thankfully I didn't. I was just overjoyed.

Aileen & Vicki have often referred to themselves as witches when they emerge from a walk through the hills of Cranham Woods with their
Matching long black wispy hair and duster-length winter coats blowing open in the winter breeze... They walk through England seemingly removed from the drone of joyless sleepwalkers... wrapped in scarves and magical conversation, they keep each other awake and inspired. They are 100% my kind of women.

I climbed in Vicki's tiny car and we went to a cafe in Tivoli. I was high on life (as per the usual) and felt myself talking a million miles a minute about the last three years, but mostly the last year, as I ate cheesy chips and sipped tea, spiked with my masala tea spices I bought in Varanasi. Vicki and Aileen both seem to have been observing the global shifts in consciousness and were very tuned in to the magic swirling around us.
The cafe closed and kicked us out so we returned to Aileen's front room in Charlton Kings.

Nostalgia washed over me again and again as our car turned up Horsefair street, past the little church and cemetery, the working man's pub and eventually to the front door of a house I first came to as an 18 year old with a huge suitcase full of blow dryers, a pink silk Jackie O dress to wear to Dylan's wedding, and a slew of things that rightly stuck a label on me as the privileged, high maintenance LA chick I was in that time.

Today I walked up with my forest green backpack on. One side of the worn-in, loved, traveler rucksack has a patch from Sumatra, the other a Nepalese third eye. Inside is a Tibetan singing bowl and a few pairs of longcrotch silkie Indian clothes and some scarves I brought as gifts. I am such an entirely different woman and yet very much the same me I have always been.

I didn't even go upstairs for about 5 hours. I lay on the floor sideways, propped up by the green backpack, my back to the fireplace, my heart facing the two women, each elegantly sprawled across a couch, eyes present and awake, in the moment we were so blessed to be sharing.

We could have talked forever, I think.

Each hour that passed, I found myself wanting to stand up and hug them both. I can't believe how lucky I am to be in a situation where it's cool for me to stay friends with my ex-mother-in-law.

Vicki left and we ordered Indian take-away. It was almost ironic as I was just IN India the day before, but it's a staple here on Horsefair street and didn't taste a thing like India. It tasted like Horsefair street. It tasted like an 8 year relationship, countless trips out to this fairytale town as I meandered through my fairytale life... It tasted like memory and comfort.

We ate and I shared with Aileen "what happened."
I put that in quotes because nothing particularly happened to break her son and I apart. It was more a progression of growing apart and eventually recognizing it was time to part ways. Allowing our paths to fork and ultimately veer into opposite existences.

Aileen had the same sentiment as my parents... One that I never even thought to look until about a year after the split, when my father emotionally demanded that I explain to him why I took their son away from them.
It hadn't actually occurred to me that it could be painful for the parents. 
You always think of the children in a divorce, and since Jamie and I never had any, I felt like there was no collateral damage somehow.
This was selfish and narrow-minded... But I was going through a divorce, so I'll cut myself a little slack for being mindless of the impact on our parents.

I sat in the kitchen eating Veg biryiani and rehashed the breakup, doing my best to paint a fair, honest, complete image.
It was cathartic and healing for me, and I hope it gave some clarity to her.

We finished our food and walked down the street to Vicki's house where we sat by candlelight observing her latest oil paintings (in-eff-ing-cred-ible), listening to the Gayitri Mantra and Laura Marling (my new obsession) between talks of 432 vibration, and me singing and playing the guitar.

They have high standards of course, their sons both phenomenal musicians. Vicki called me the Yoko Ono of their band. It's probably a bit true. But her son Georgie has ended up getting a doctorate in fractal mathematics... Unbelievable that it was a whole doctorate's worth of time that Jamie and I spent together.
It's like sometimes when I measure things in 9 month chunks and go "whoa! It took a whole creation of a baby to do that"... Jamie and I had a doctorate of love and memories under our belts and vicki and Aileen are integral parts of our story.   

Anyways... A whole roast turkey's time in Vicki's front room and Aileen and I braced to go back out in the howling wind and stormy night and return to her house. I didn't want to let Aileen go as I was hugging her goodnight.

In the morning, we sat around the house together eating breakfast, drinking tea and chatting away all morning until suddenly it was lunchtime and Vicki came back over for some homemade lentil soup.

After lunch Russell Kennedy, one of jamie's childhood best friends came by. He had been hit on his bicycle in London and just had facial reconstruction. I played him my singing bowl and with that, began (once again) to restructure my intention for next year.

I still want to become a nurse and start clinics in poor, third world countries... but I can see myself using alternative healing methods- sound vibration, reiki, yoga, massage, music... All the things I have spent my life honing and learning about.
As Vicki said "be a nurse for people who are Experiencing spiritual emergence and needing shamanic guides."

We talked at length about mental illness and schizophrenia. About the change in paradigm- one that is shifting from believing that the brain creates consciousness to recognizing that the brain, rather, receives consciousness.
(a super heady, incredible Convo)

We headed over to jamie's brothers house - another meeting that was 3 years overdue.

I found myself with my nephew and godson Mitchel, who is now 7 and unbelievably intelligent and tuned into spiritual presence.
I took off my bindi and stuck it above his bed at his request.
He told me the elephant spirit who comes in his room and dances at night will live in my third eye.
He also said he wants to be a doctor so we can go around the world together and help children who are sick and poor.
"it's okay that the children in India don't have any toys auntie zani," he said quietly, "you give them something better then toys... You give them Love."

He blows my mind. 
We are starting a secret society pen pal-ship... My code name is "hawk" and his is "eagle"...
Our nemesis is "kingfisher" but our love is so powerful it can knock out all evil. We don't even have to use violence or weapons.

Like I said - blows my mind.

Just before I kissed him goodnight he mentioned Jamie and I... We are his godparents and Jamie warned me he would ask a lot of questions about us.

"mitchel..." I said gently "you know... Jamie and I still love each-other even though we've split up."

"no!" he protested righteously. "I asked uncle Jamie and he said he doesn't love you anymore."

Well, I thought. Good to know.

We laughed about it when I got back downstairs and reported about my precocious little nephew's bedtime routine.

We got back to Aileen's house and went straight to bed. My second night in this bed that felt like a princess should be sleeping in it.
Before I fell asleep I got an email from someone I love. A message from afar that made my heart tickle.
I downloaded Laura Marling's album "A Creature I Don't Know" and slept to a track Called "Night After Night"

Night after night, it seems, I sleep in a new place... A different country, a different world.
Only the dreamworld is familiar and comfortable to me.
Everything else is exciting and new.
I woke up totally disoriented in the middle of the night- convinced I was in Rhishikesh in my little Sudesh room. I could have sworn I was there... And then as though I fell through a pyramid of fractaling shapes and lines drawn by my own mind in the dark of night, I found myself in the turquoise room in England. Laura Marling was still playing on repeat.
I turned it off and fell back into my cozy dreamworld among faces and images I recognized and remembered.

In the morning I felt lucky and humbly recognized the interdependence and impermanence of the universe as we know it.

I would not be here if I hadn't gone there.
I would not be me today if there wasn't a you, or a me from yesterday that I am not.
(there cant be a "me" without a "not me")
I will never be the same because nothing ever is. We are in constant flux... Change... Transformation.

The door opened downstairs and I scurried quickly down the carpeted stairs and dove into the arms of jamie's dad, Davy.
His eyes teared up and mine nearly did too - but we lightened the mood by making bad jokes as we always have.

The three of us headed into town for some lunch and to exchange a sweater they bought me for Christmas. (Aileen and I are excellent speed-shoppers. I tried on about 30 dresses in 10 minutes settling on a beautiful blue sweater dress with a leather braided belt.)

We dropped Aileen at work which again was a moment of almost tears- but I trust we will see each-other again... Still, driving away from her was really heavy on my heart.
 Davy and I went for a long hot chocolate date and once again I got to rehash the demise of my marriage as best I could before heading to the train station and returning to London in the dark rainy night to meet Georgie- Vicki's son, Jamie's cousin and bandmate and my old friend. He too would need the long rehash catchup routine.

I think over the last year I have lived in the present moment perhaps a bit too well...
I have lost touch with reflection.
I have let some things happen without even thinking about them... Without taking the time to ask myself "what the hell happened here?"

This trip to Cheltenham has given me the opportunity to reflect on the last few years and figure out what exactly has gone down.
Articulating it to my estranged in-laws has given us all a bit of peace and comfort.

We are all truly so so blessed.

I wish for all families to share the kind of truly unconditional love, support & acceptance that both Jamie & my family share.

We wouldn't be us without one another.
I love you all for being in this story with me.

We are so lucky.

London & a me I used to be...

London & a me i used to be

Winter morning sunlight shining through fog made by my exhale... The glare is just almost too bright for my eyes.
My boots clip clop along the wet cobblestones of West Drayton as red buses vroom past me- their tires splashing puddles.

It's all so familiar, this life I once lived.


I skip across the street to the green grocer on the corner as soon as the traffic lights turn red and the funny little hatchback cars on the wrong side of what looks like a oneway street in LA come to a polite stop... I cross the few steps through stopped cars and walk into the quintessential English produce shoppe- with flowers and fruit out front - displayed in perfect lines.
Each piece of fruit has a sticker citing place of origin and each apple is perfect in size, color and overall appearance.
Like the girls in LA- flawless but cloned- somehow inauthentic in their perfection.

Again- memories of a life I used to live - a state I used to aspire towards. A me I used to be.

These days I feel rather like the odd shaped fly covered pieces of produce piled on a dusty blanket that lays right on the road of an Indian village.
Random bulls and cows meander past eyeing the perfectly imperfect fruit, waiting for the vendor to get distracted so they can have a little free sample.

But I am so stoked on apples right now, I clip clop off that wet stone sidewalk and buy myself two pink ladies and an orange. Peeling off the stickers with dismay. These stickers are like badges of honor for being beautiful.

"I'd think you were beautiful even if you had bad skin and an abnormally long stem." I whispered to the perfect pink apple before biting into it.

Oh. My. God.

I died and went to heaven with that bite.  The nectar splashed across my tongue and I literally jumped in the air wiggling around and squealing as I walked back  down the street. A huge grin spread across my face.

An elderly woman with a cane and a shopping bag on wheels flinched and stuck her hand out towards me as though to say "get away." - clearly somewhat terrified by the bindi and backpack wearing gypsy excitedly eating fruit as she walked down the street.

There is just not enough joy in this country for me.

Sometimes it doesn't bother me. Sometimes I can be joyous and excited and stoked on life enough for everyone- but being in India surrounded by people like me- surrounded by a culture of people who laugh and sing and hold eachother tight and smile as you walk down the street...
I don't know - I guess I just no longer want to fit inside a mold- wear a sticker that says where I am from and that I've passed the culturally acceptable test for being beautiful- I don't want to get up in the dark and go to a boring job to make money that will pile up in my account until I get 2 weeks to go pretend like I'm actually traveling and seeing a place - when in reality I'll just be staying in a nice hotel and experiencing "luxury" as a reward for my "hard work"...
(okay- okay- not that I've really done that so much in this life)...

But I see it- all the time.
Especially in the UK where it seems the goal is to own a house and settle deeper into the joylessness.
I hate to be harsh because I really do love this country. I love the people of the UK (I mean- hell... I married one when I was 19 yrs old)...
But the motivation for life here is just not one that I understand.

My teacher- a guy called the Dalai Lama giggles when he teaches and tells me to just BE HAPPY.

I'm with him.

But I also know that sometimes you have to fit inside a box before you can break out of it.

I lived in this box. I actually lived in a shoebox... A tiny little studio flat off Kensington Church Street behind the Notting Hill Arts Club. I wore a pencil skirt and a French twist and rode a train to an office- traveling with my head down, avoiding eye contact with fellow fiercely commuting office workers.
I actually had a great time living this London life!
I was a weekend warrior- the pub after work on Friday would become a club into the wee hours of Saturday which would become a hair of the dog pub day followed by a dinner and dancing which would become a club into the wee hours of Sunday.
This was, of course, unless I was on a long weekend holiday to a European city or back to California to see my family.
(I had to pay the company I was working for lots of money/time back for all the vacation I took and was not actually entitled to when I quit.) - I never sat still. Maybe ever in my life actually.

I really did love living here as a newlywed and ex-pat. We had great friends and fun routines... But I was definitely in a hamster wheel and spent 100 pounds on a night out on the town as if that was totally normal. I got completely accustomed to and disillusioned by the unbelievable wealth here that feels unshockingly normal.

A me I used to be.

I wonder though... Was I happy then?

In all honesty... Looking back - I think I was!
As I remember (and as old facebook photos seem to affirm)... I smiled a lot. I had great friends, cool stuff, awesome boots and fun adventures around this continent I came to know so well.

Europe is a fantastic place.

But I wasn't free. I think that's the main difference.

It's funny because I was thinking about this the other day in India... Watching a stray dog wander around and play with the other strays... Eat whatever he wanted... Bark as loud as he wanted... Totally free.
But he slept in the cold night air on a sidewalk curled up next to a stray cow to try to keep warm.

I thought of Jessica and Margot's puppies - invariably wrapped in cashmere at that exact moment in time- a world and a half away from where I was in Rhishikesh. Their dogs are warm and fed organic dog food and their fur groomed and shampooed with expensive dog friendly products. But they aren't allowed to bark or run free across a field.

Is one life better then the next or are they just different existences?

Maybe I just want to bark and roam free for a while... Cruise outside the box I just broke out of for a while... Even if it means I sleep on a sidewalk or two. As long as I have my friends- life loving, free spirited radical light beings around me to remind me why I am here... I'll be AOK.


This is the me I am now.

A barking apple eating gypsy poet. What of it?

Made it... With cankles

I made it (with cankles)

I made it through the proverbial winter... The years and months since my separation and ultimately divorce from the man I solemnly swore to spend my eternity with.
I made it through the wedding, the post-party come down, a move to London, a deportation trial, a return to California, a yoga teacher training, yet another upheaval and complete refurbishment of my existence on earth, a festival in the desert that changed my perception of life drastically, the break up, the year I got lost in Venice and forgot how to feel reality, a move to Indonesia, another alteration, countless adventures around Asia, 10 days of silent reflection, meditation, and study of the science of the mind that is Buddhism, and finally the month of bliss and love in rhishikesh, India that I just tore myself away from yesterday to find myself here, today... On a central London bound train, bundled in an Indian yaks wool blanket, rocking an orange bindi on my third eye and a spirit that this grey, bleak, London energy can try but will never be able to crush.

I look around from my backwards facing window seat and reflect on it all... Groundation - a reggae band I have recently fallen in love with- is playing through my iPod speakers as I gaze out the smudged wet and foggy overground train window... Remembering being one of these Peacoat and leather boot wearing London girls reading with handbag on lap and lips pursed together in a "don't fuck with me" kind of way.

The working class 18 year old mums yelling at their daughters for getting their winter coats dirty. "mind your gloves Milly! You're gonna be freezing you are. There's a bit of a gap so you hold my hand. No running. You're gettin your coat filthy."

An endless tirade of demands and orders from a mummy with pink highlights in her a-symmetrical hairdo poking out from under a beanie.

It feels like a million years since I lived here but it's all so familiar I almost feel like I could  say I was home... This could be my final stop for the year.

I arrived at Heathrow last night around 8pm. (very delayed).. After a 9 hour flight that I mostly rested through, listening to reggae and watching a Harry potter film as my ankles swelled and swelled to finally end up as massive cankles. (no difference between the calf and the ankle)... I think it's hilarious.
The fasten seatbelt light flicked on. Our empty biryani trays were collected along with our headphones. We began our descent. 
The captain came on over the speakers to do the general thank you for traveling virgin Atlantic and to tell us that the temperature was 2degrees in London.
We all flinched and groaned.
Shiiiiiiiiit.
I bundled tight and scuffled off the plane into immigration. I've been in this exact immigration office about 25 times according to my passport.
The customs officer asked why I was coming to London this time.

"to get closure with my ex-husband's family post divorce and to catch up with the city I used to have an intimate relationship with."

He rolled his eyes and stamped my passport as his seemingly audible inner dialogue groaned and mumbled "pshh. Hippie."

I giggled, collected my passport and told him I loved him and proceeded to the baggage reclaim that took a solid hour. The belt circled around and around with no bags on it. We got word that the doors to the plane were frozen shut so they couldn't get our bags out... I felt the city dweller vibe of my fellow travelers getting progressively more and more irritated and agitated.
Cell phones came out and exasperated voices winged and complained - apologizing to loved ones in the next corridor waiting us Delhi folk to emerge.

I knew Lucy was waiting for me and felt a pang of guilt and considered borrowing a phone to call her and apologize and get caught in the frustration but stopped myself and thought no...
We have all just come from India where nothing happens like you want it to... Everything is chaotic and frustrating and we just accept it and shrug our shoulders.. Ah well... It's India.

What made it different now that we were standing on UK soil!?

We had literally stepped off Indian soil- cankled up on a plane and then here we were- as though totally transformed- sucked back into Now! Now! Now! Energy... Making "tsk" noises and tapping our toes furiously.

Even today walking through the station to board this train I did my power woman power walk, shoving my bag back on my hip so I can navigate the crowds of people and zig zag through to find my platform not unlike the way the rikshaw drivers swerve through the Delhi traffic without braking.

I have no brakes when I speedwalk through the London underground stations. Ruthless, brisk and super intention- destination set.

I think I forgot that I knew how to move this quickly.

Living on the island, meandering through the jungle... Nothing is urgent.
India and Thailand are not far off... Letting the wind lift and carry me, there's been no call for brisk movement- no need to march quickly or efficiently.

Everything is go! Go! GO! In London... Maybe that energy was permeating the cool air that swirled above us at the baggage reclaim last night... Like a perfume that permeates a room- the London gogonownow vibe permeated our psyches as soon as we touched down.

My train came into Paddington and I marched to the bakerloo line- boarding a tube train to Oxford Circus where I switched to the central line for Tottenham court Road.

I felt a nostalgia wash over me.


I used to live on the red line. These chairs.. I probably sat right here in this exact seat before. (though I used to like to walk to Oxford Street from our Notting Hill flat)...

Walking is not an option today as I have hypothermia when I so much as step outside (I am NOT adjusted!) and because the blisters on my feet After the gnarly trek to the temple I did with Joey and the tribe a few days ago in the Indian forest- are still raw on my heels.
Plus my cankles are still pretty epic - like I have a layer of playdough around my ankle bones under the skin.

Groundation reggae awesomeness only came out of my ears once on this train adventure so far today- when I passed a busking man in the Paddington station sporting a top hat with feathers strumming flamenco sounding music on his guitar. I shimmied, spun around and blew him a kiss.
He started cracking up as I kept walking to the next platform...

I was on my way to meet Mario & Michelle - my friends from Indonesia who happen to be in London after their adventure in Nepal and Tibet.


I haven't seen them since I stayed at their resort - Surfing Village up in the Telos Islands - a few hundred nautical miles north of me in the islands.

I can't wait to see some of my people! The slow flowing gypsy mermaid people- also most likely freezing and looking around for some semblance of peace and chill vibes!

-----

Later - a glass of white wine floating in my belly warming my cheeks - I am back on the bakerloo line heading back to Lucy's house after an awesome 4 or 5 hours with my friends.

Michelle is Australian and Mario is Brazilian. We are so similar and love each-other whenever we hang out. They have just been in Nepal and Tibet while I was in India and now we meet in London. We walk such parallel paths and I generally feel so connected to them. They get me and my gypsy ways. Their resort is so comfortable and inviting to everyone. I felt so comfortable there when I went on an adventure with Shayne, Pix and Jessica last August. They were wrapped in that same mellow, positive light when I met them today.

I can't wait to go back up to their resort next season when I'm out in the islands. We talked a lot about it as we wandered this amazing city with Mario's sister and her English boyfriend.

We all met at Tottenham Court Road and I lead us in a little walk through London as we swapped stories and made notes about the difference in atmosphere and how trippy it was to be in a first world country.
We all felt like such poor people as we walked down the closed off pedestrianized wet London streets all Christmas spirited out in the kitschiest way... Down Oxford Street, through Picadilli Circus, down through St James Park- over to Big Ben and Houses of parliament and over the bridge to the London Eye - where we noted outloud how much we'd love to find a nice hole in the wall pub.
Moments later we stumbled upon a pub called "Hole In The Wall"
Pshh.
Perfect.

We climbed inside and warmed our freezing fingers... Everything about London makes my cheeks red. The in and out from frosty cold cobblestone to raging hot heated stores and pubs serving cheek warming wine... The sweet accent of complimentary London men in suits- the unassuming, but totally inviting pick-up lines from the equally rosy cheeked guys makes me blush. But luckily I can mask it as a reaction to the temperature.

I ate apples any time I could all day long. Oh how I've missed apples. I remember on my flight out to Indonesia early this year, I only ate apples the entire 22 hour plane journey. I haven't really had a good one since.

An apple in London costs the same as a nights accommodation in Rhishikesh- a big double room with a private bathroom and hot shower.
That's how much an apple is here.

It blows my mind that I used to live this life- earn pounds... Spend pounds... Live this go go go life and drop 100 rupees on an apple like it was no big deal.

Michelle and I gasped when we spent 100,000 rupiah on 2 drinks.

It's all how you look at it, really.

I remember when Jamie and I were living here in London and I was itching to travel... Dying to go to India. Aching to experience Asia and the southern hemisphere.
Jamie would say "ya... But you have you entire life to travel zani! Why go right now!!? You can always travel later."

I could never see it his way no matter how hard I tried... And finally, while standing at the foot of my 25 year old girlfriend's deathbed at UCLA hospital - it all became abundantly clear to me.
I can't wait because there's no guarantee there will BE a later...
Today could be my last day on earth. So I have to make it count and do everything I want to do... Today.

As Michelle and I walked (me hobbling on my cankles), ignoring the blisters and hypothermic hands... We found ourselves strolling through Saint James park with empty pockets... joking (but half seriously) looking for a soup kitchen that feeds homeless people, I realized that I am living.
I am so poor. Totally in debt. And never happier.

I don't know how long i have - but i know that if i have my entire life to do anything- I'd rather have my entire life to pay off the debt for my yesterday when I lived fully, joyously, and blissfully... Carefree and open hearted. Then waiting my entire life to live.

This is the way I made it here today. Charging it. (financially and metaphorically)

Bravely stepping one cankled foot in front of the next.

...hands across the world

Last night- my last night in India.


We decided to head back to the guesthouse for a few hours before the sound circle... So bundled in our multicolor yaks wool blankets we left 'The Office' - which quite literally has become our tribe's office- one of us could always be found sitting on the balcony with an instrument, a steel mug of the best chai in Rhishikesh and an apple samosa (or the fly covered crumbs of one that was too good and tantalizing to even let it cool down before it was devoured)...

We walked down the semi covered Bazar walkway towards the bridge, passing the street vendors we have come to recognize, declining popcorn and prayer beads and pressing our palms together to wish "hari OM" to the crooked eyed Babas.

The night was brisk and the wind snapped and howled. The Ganges was violent and hostile looking- furious white caps and snakelike ripples charged down the sacred river to our left.
The sunset Aarti ceremony would soon be coming to a close as night fell... The bells and gongs and chanting would cease as the desperate to stay lit in this wind candle flames would be released into the river.
Soon the road we walked down would flood for a moment with sari wearing worshipers.
The peanut vendor prepared for the arrival of the mass.
An eerie street light hung over his stand and poured yellowish light down upon him and his steaming tray of peanuts and burning incense lifting smoke swirling up towards the light.
His dark brown hands patted the peanut shells from behind the curtain of smoke and light.

"Visual snapshot" I said to myself.

I do this sometimes. Drink in a moment. Taste it, roll it over my tongue and commit the image to my memory. Of all the magical images of that night, I'm not sure why I chose to enter the peanut vendor's hands to my sacred memory bank of snapshots but I did, and I'm fairly certain it's locked in for life.

We hung a quick right up past Joey's barber, waving hello and tiptoed down the perpetually urine smelling shortcut footpath we affectionately call "pee alley"... Emerging onto the dirt field that is always lovingly littered with young children playing cricket in the dirt - they somehow avoid the piles of cow dung with their light-footedness.

We ascended the narrow hill where silver monkeys with black faces sat and watched us curiously reconnecting with the main street at the magic tree - a gnarled, twisted huge mangrove-like tree at the top of Baba mountain that acts as a landmark for our friends.

Aaron, Joey & I were leading Danny (who finally re-entered the scene after nearly 3 weeks in Dharamshala taking the same Buddhist Meditation Course as I did the previous month)... He arrived the night before with a gaggle of goddesses but most notably a Canadian sunbeam of a woman named Melissa who is pure positive energy and a huge smile that seems to stretch into eternity.

Danny left Aaron & I in Rhihikesh before I even got sick. It feels like I died and was reborn since then... It feels like I've lived ten lifetimes and at the same time it stuns me to realize that it's ONLy been 3 weeks since Aaron & I started really exploring and understanding Rhishikesh- building our tribe- holding hands with everyone.


Together we maneuvered Ram Julle, pointing out important landmarks to Danny & Melissa and found our way home to Sudesh Guesthouse.

Aaron went to teach a guitar lesson to Sequoia, our sound healing sister while I taught a yoga lesson to Joey, Danny & Melissa in the upstairs yoga hall we just discovered in my last 24 hours here. (typical)...

This trip just has not been about yoga for me. Crazy, I know... Im in India... But the last year has not been about "yoga"- I put that in quotes because of course I believe I walk my yoga, eat my yoga, breathe my yoga, love my yoga. Asana just isn't that important to me anymore for some reason.
I find a headstand and a meditation draws me deeper into myself then arm balancing and performing sun salutations (although it's still fun to fly and to teach asana too)...

I met an American guy at The Office the other day who was on his first day. I drew him a map and shared with him some wisdom about traveling...

"don't even bother thinking about what you want from India" I said to him as we sat sipping chai out of the famous steel mugs, "just be open to and receive whatever she wants of you."

Palms open to the sky. Ready to let go... Ready to receive.

Danny & Melissa's course at Tushita was a few days shorter then mine so they didn't get to do the "envisioning your own death" mediation.
I did my best to re-do what I remembered of it during savasana in the newly discovered yoga hall.

Ready to let go.
Ready to receive.

We all went to sound healing/jam-sesh and sang... Held hands and made an OM circle placing our left palms flat on our neighbor's thigh to signify that they should start their OM in the round. 
We are always in contact, our tribe.
Everyone seems to always be draped over one another.. Holding, stroking, patting one another from within the eternal cuddle puddle.

Healing hands.

We danced to be free, this body and me... Across the room by the candles on the centerpiece alter splattering my shadow on the wall before me. I watched my hands dance across the ceiling and then looked around, drinking in these people.

Visual snapshot

The room had cleared out and it was just our family left- Rainer- the German dijeridoo player who was at Tushita with me- he has a gibberish fantasy language he slips into. He cooked us lunch the other day at his ashram and presented me with a painting he did for me.
His artist hands were playing a harmonium- gently pumping the organ-come-accordian devotional music instrument...

Next to him was Silja who's eyes were closed. She wore a white Sikh turbin and white drapy clothing and scarves that are somehow miraculously always clean. A single sparkle sat in the center of her forehead leaping off her face as the candle flickered and was reflected lighting up her already illuminated face.
Her delicate hands were suspended in space in front of her chest as thought her song was melting out of her heart and dripping down her fingertips.

Behind Silja, Aaron lay on his back- vibed out as usual in patchwork rainbow longcrotch India pants, a collared white shirt and slew of awesome jewelry I have been a part of purchasing over the last few months. His dread-locked, beaded, braided Baba hair spread across the hardwood floor like a mermaid. His hands strummed the guitar as he sang an impromptu song for me "the hotsy totsy airy fairy"

Krishna's hands danced in time with Aaron's strumming as he maneuved his flute, caressing the empty space in the room with his magic. His thin Israeli build seemed weightless as he sat up straight and tall, elegantly wrapped in a pale colored pashmina. Every instrument touched by those hands is transformed into heavenly harmony. He is a genius. Aaron said one of the most talented musicians he's ever known of.

Rebecca lay beside him with her hands on his legs. Her undulating, creature-like energy swished around her pale Australian skin and strawberry hair. She too lay with closed eyes- wearing a face of pure bliss euphoria... Lost in a moment of union... Touching the all and absorbing the magic of Krishna's flute.

Joey lay on his side facing me with eyes open... A smile spread across his joyous face... Head propped up sideways in his hand, watching the shadows dance behind me as I flitted around the fire clapping my hands and laughing at Aaron's lyrics to describe me.
Suddenly Joey leaped to his feet and his hands grabbed mine, spinning me around and around the room. Everyone was soon on their feet swinging eachother, holding hands as they danced and hummed and sang our love cry... Our song of gratitude to the universe... Our howl to the fullmoon hanging above us.

We slept for two hours and then I got a royal escort across Rhishikesh to my 4am taxi that would take me to Delhi airport.

My fingertips were freezing but my palms sweaty as I passed over Ram Julle bridge. It seemed to dip and sway in the violent wind. I couldn't believe it was over but I slid my fingers between each of my friend's and made solemn promises to see each of them again.

I ducked inside my taxi car and watched my driver, Sanjib put on gloves... Funny white gloves that look like the exfoliating shower scrub gloves my ex mother-in-law always had in the bathroom.

sanjib really likes techno and his horn. That's cool. 
I mean- it's India. 
Of course I felt more along the lines of Leonard Cohen in this moment departing this fantasy reality dream I've been in... Driving away into the foggy, dark early morning under the big moon...  I guess his techno barbie world remix totally works for me for the moment too.

I was in Sanjib's capable hands for the next 6 hours.
He was taking me on the next leg of my journey home...

First stop Delhi.
Well... First stop for chai and aloo parantha at a little stall by the side of the road to Delhi.

 I've never seen so many rats in one establishment. They scurried everywhere and flung themselves across from one table to the next. Significantly bigger and fatter then the itty bitty baby mouse friends that came to visit our rooms daily at Sudesh...
I watched these fat rats and their tiny hands dexterously scuttling over wires and down uneven broken walls... 
They didn't even faze me for one moment. They lived here too. 

I was a visitor and only for a matter of hours left...

I dropped my hands into my lap and dozed off, waking up to 9am in Delhi... Horns and yellow & green rickshaws, the fast, lawless, lineless, weaving swerving, senseless traffic of this metropolis.

Back to the cities.

I'll be in London tonight...

Whoa.

I keep singing the Local Natives song "sun hands" to myself
Lyrics
i climbed to the top of a hill
but i had just missed the sun
and although the descending arc was gone
left behind were the traces that always follow along

the most beautiful colors chase the sun
they wrap her trail in a taunting gesture
that seems to sing out loud,
"this is what you're missing"

i'll endure the night
for the promise of light

i want to lift my hands towards the sun
show me warmth
baby, won't you show me warmth again?
and when i can feel with my sun hands
i'll promise not to lose her again
and even if the morning never comes
my hands are blessed to have touched the sun

and when i can feel with my sun hands
i promise not to lose her again

There's always daisies

There's always daisies.



With eyes closed, leaning on my walking stick, I listened to the low hum from the thousands of bees in a field of vibrant yellow flowers.
I think they were actually mustard flowers and not daisies- but beautiful and picturesque  nonetheless as they rolled across this magical flat patch, nestled in the mountains on our trail.  We stumbled upon this buzzing patch of brilliance on our 9 hour trek from Rhishikesh to Kunjapuli Temple today.

The week before, Joey pointed out two little lights that absolutely looked like stars in the night sky... So far away from us and so high in the sky were these twinkling markers of Kunjapuli. A million miles away from the rooftop jam at Hill Top where we sat snuggled up around the fire making music for and with the tribe of creative brothers and sisters we found in Rhishikesh.
Somehow it didn't fully compute in that moment that I would have to hike all the way up there to get to where Joey was pointing from behind me so my eyes lined up with his fingertips.

Now I was willing my legs to take just one more step as we climbed and climbed through North Indian forest.
Joey rocked his red "midnight suns" Alaska firefighter shirt and told us stories about living in the wilderness and fighting wildfires, effortlessly skipping up the trail like it was no big thing as I attempted to keep up and tried not to puke or pass out.
Krishna, our unbelievably talented israel yogi musician brother walked along side me and continually asked if I needed a break... When I'd look up through a beet red face and eyes full of sweat and nod feebly, Krishna would yell ahead that he needed a break (but really it was totally for me.)

It's not that I'm out of shape really at all... I can float through a challenging yoga class without even breaking much of a sweat... If we were walking on level ground I could go on forever.
But the uphill thing was killing me.
I reminded myself that I have been very sick and spent a lot of time just lying in bed especially since I've been in Rhishikesh... And spent most of 2011 living on a completely flat Indonesian island in the middle of the indian ocean. The biggest change in altitude is maybe 2 feet... Now I was trying to go higher then I've been in over a year. Aaron had just trekked up the Anapurnas for 8 days, and Sequoia, our sound healing circle leader and fierce Goddess, hikes regularly in these mountains as she lives here.

The landscape was getting progressively more and more beautiful as our band of 5 ascended the mountain... I was getting more and more exhausted, disillusioned and over it with each step.

We stopped at a shady clearing underneath a big, beautiful tree. The Kriya Yoga Dome in Tapovan, where we started earlier in the morning, looked like a speck in the distance down the deep canyon. Descriptive words started bubbling up in me as I caught my breath and gazed out over the magnificence and magic of India and i realized in that moment that I had a lot to write... I have been so caught up in loving each moment, loving my friends and tribe here, and loving myself (which is awesome)... I haven't taken time out to write as I usually do.
My nighttime routine of laying down and recounting experiences and lessons found in simple moments in the day has fallen by the wayside in the last few weeks.

After being so sick and then bouncing back to life, I feel anew. Everything is more vibrant then before and more magical... I think I shed a layer of dead snake skin and am fresher now, full of new bright intentions and happiness though still clearly pretty weak.

I announced that I was staying here, at this beautiful tree to write and be alone and would catch everyone on the way down.
I truly didn't feel like a failure or a wuss... I felt like I was honoring myself by deciding to just hang out instead of pushing myself and feeling like the weakest link on the trek.
Aaron strongly disagreed with my sentiment and asked what part of myself I was honoring by quitting.
"uh... The part that likes to be happy and chill." I replied.
He insisted that I needed to push myself and overcome the mind which was preventing me from going further and confronting things that are difficult throughout my life.

Joey too wasn't having it and gently encouraged me to keep hiking saying he wouldn't leave me behind, making me a walking stick/priestess staff, wearing my backpack for me and picking purple flowers off the trail, so I could put them behind my ear.

I was flattered and felt loved and also was so pissed off!

I did not want to hike! I could not wrap my head around why people do this! Walking up a steep hill for 9 freaking hours? It's pretty much hell.

I love nature and being in nature, I love exercising and feeling that rush of endorphins but my thighs and head were not having any fun and I only smiled when going downhill. Why was I doing this in the first place? Isn't the point of life to laugh and have fun?

I talked to Sequoia about this as we hiked, in an attempt to distract myself from the irritation in my mind... I told her about the Yogis from Belarus i met in Varanasi who were so so strict and gnarly on themselves. They barked with Russian sounding accents how they were YOGIS!!! They restricted themselves from so many things and seemed to be totally pushing against any sort of flow as I floated and flowed across the rooftop, tango dancing around them and between them singing songs about being happy and sleeping in past the sunrise.
They reminded me of a time in my life when I was so strict and regimented- a vegan, strict no alcohol or toxins or junk food, I woke up at the crack of dawn to practice intense asana and was pretty hard on myself.

I can't remember exactly when the craziness broke and some light poured in, but at some point it did, and my true yoga was illuminated to me.  I realized that if I wasn't enjoying myself or having fun and being happy, then what the f was I doing?

I feel much further evolved and wiser making decisions that feed my joy rather then things that follow a set of strict rules and guidelines just because someone along the way said I should.

I have found that sometimes honoring yourself means letting go of some crazy goal you made and realize along the road to it that it's way too hard.

Thats where I was in the mountains- totally over it... Detached from the idea of reaching Kunjapuli and seriously into my new plan to sit underneath this glorious tree in the middle of nowhere and write, but the crew kept encouraging me to go a little further.  Joey told me his favorite part of the trek (which he's now done 4 times) was just ahead and it wasn't too steep to get there.

I staggered away from the tree i had melted into a puddle beneath and my plan to hang out, feeling more sad with each step I took away from that little zen zone I had decided to call home for the afternoon.

We rounded a bend and all of a sudden, as though in technicolor, the fabulous yellow field unrolled before us in it's glory. The buzz was like a constant mantra. 
Low and deep - bees working, mating, loving, creating, collecting, OMing it seemed.
We all stood captivated, still and silently smiling before running down to be in it and dance with the bees and take turns snapping photos...
Krishna and I stood facing each-other in Natarajasana (King Dancer pose) right in the middle of the field.
Nataraj is Shiva - the cosmic dancer. We were in the Shiva land- above the Ganga - prancing around the field like cosmic dancers.

This beautiful, blissful moment was suddenly broken. Blasted open by the piercing shriek of a woman trying to move her bulls up the path.

How symbolic, I thought.

Astrologically, my Mercury falls in Taurus, the Bull.
I think it was my Taurus mercury that was stubbornly fighting against my psyche and my friends. Arguing my point and digging my heels back near the tree.

My guilt at being the weakest link was almost suffocating me... Crippling me... I didn't want to keep going, like one of these resistant bulls. Shrieking voices inside of me, egged on by my friends- sounded like that of the little Indian Lady- insisting, demanding that I keep going just a little further.

Just past the flowers was a part of the trail that dipped down. I threw my arms in the air waving the walking staff above my head and yelled, "I love downhill!!!"

I remembered our walk down towards the Ganges, past the Kriya Yoga Dome that we did every day from Bandari Swiss Cottages in High Bank when we were living up there with Mikey and Danny.
(which btw feels like eons ago.) So much has happened in this month in Rhishikesh!
Back in the day, I would run down the hill towards the dome and got filled with excitement every time we did the walk.
I felt like that skipping down the little downward portion of this hike... Elated to be surrendering to gravity!

Aaron asked me what it would take to make me happy going uphill.

"a chairlift" I replied.

I thought about snowboarding and how much I love it... And realized that you have to go up in order to come down.

That 100 dollar chairlift ticket represents lots of hard work to be able to afford it. The hard work that takes you to the top is done before in your job, here on this mountain I was having to work hard too in order to reach the top.
I was ready to come down!

Similarly, just in reverse - I realize that in life sometimes we have to go down in order to come back up and fly high - like my getting so sick only to bounce back up and feel really full of life and love as I do now.

My brother Krishna was experiencing the opposite of me on this hike and in life.

The night before, I shared with him a poem I wrote that says "in order to fly this high, we'll dip that low... And in the end, it's worth the comedown to darkness to fly beside the sun."
I had reminded him that this low he is in will only catapult him higher!

My lesson is that there is always work to get up the mountain. There's no free way up.

The temple at the top wasn't THAT amazing and in all honesty I think I would have been satisfied at the patch of yellow flowers.... But everyone wanted me to be up there at the top which made me feel loved and did give me a sense of accomplishment. The view was spectacular and I felt like I was sitting in the clouds (with all the temple monkeys of course)...


We sipped chai and ate bread watching the clouds cruise past the Himalayan skyline and preparing to head back down home.  Krishna hates going downhill and was stressed about making it down whereas I was stoked and ready to skip down the hill...

Aaron and I lead the way down the trail, psychoanalyzing the lessons and messages in the hike.
I still had a flavor of disappointment in myself for sucking at hiking so bad... Reaching the top didn't mean as much to me as being lame on the way up for some reason... I was still stuck in my head. I know that I am way too hard on myself and willing to work on it.

I felt so lucky to have such strong support and love from my tribe and the ability to look back on the experience and find lessons from the universe hidden along the path like a cosmic scavenger hunt as I skipped down towards Rhishikesh as twilight began to fall.


We trotted down the hill and passed the field of yellow flowers once again.

I paused and realized that there's always daisies. On the way up and on the way down.

Maybe that's all the lesson I need.