Sky Mind

Where is the sky?

Point to it.

…Chances are you pointed up.

Where is your mind?

Point to it.

… I bet you pointed to your head.

But think about it.

 Isn't the sky out in front of you - at the horizon line?  When you're standing on the beach looking around you, isn't the sky all around you?  If I stood right in front of you, wouldn't there be sky between us?  I mean certainly if we were skydiving together, there would be sky between us. So…  Is there a place where the sky starts?  Where it ends?  Does it stop at our atmosphere?  Well then what about the night sky?  Aren't the moon and the stars part of the sky?

Those stars we see in our starry night sky are millions of light years away and have probably likely burned out by now, but we are seeing a snapshot of what that star looked like millions of years ago.  It's just taken years for the light to reach our eyes.

So is the sky just an illusion?  Or a collection of gas molecules and astronomical mysteries? Or a log of very old events, like a cosmos history book?

What about the mind?  Isn't it the same?  Isn't it just non-matter space?  If you are still pointing to your head to show me where the mind is, go ahead and put down your hand first of all.  

But really - Where you are pointing, I see hair, skull bones, dura mater, neural tissue cells and fluids. I don't see a mind.  

Point to your thoughts, your emotions, your memories. Where are they? I've dissected a brain before, and I can tell you… it's all matter.  I guarantee that the being I dissected once had dreams and feelings, but they were not in the matter I was cutting open and inspecting.  I cut into a brain…. not a mind.  So where is the mind?  And more importantly where does it go when it's no longer associated with a living body?

I love this sky/mind analogy/conundrum.

Makes me think that the sky and the mind (or as some call "the soul") are just as infinite and intangible yet absolute in their existence as one another.

The Buddhists say that the mind is eternal… just like the sky.

I love to think that Birdie's mind is still here. His spirit… his soul… it's part of the sky now.

(Birdie -Adam Dube - was one of my best friends who drown 6 weeks ago off the island we lived on together once upon a time.)

You know how when you leave a head of garlic in a bowl for a while and then take it out, there is still a smell or essence of garlic that remains for a really long time?

I feel like Birdie's life left an essence behind in that same way.

There is still an eau de Birdie in my heart and in my life.

I miss him pretty much every day and have to shake my head and wash the feelings off of me before they grab hold and suck me down into deep sadness.  I almost feel like he's just on a really long boat trip and is still coming back to main land soon.

I guess that's one of the hard parts about loving and losing a pirate.

You're so used to them being out at sea, it's left as a permanent assumption  - he'll make landfall again. He must.

I was writing to him a lot after he died… Imagining that the emails would bounce up to the infinite space (where I like to think his eternal mind and soul reside now) and on their way back down to his gmail account, they would cross his essence and he could receive me somehow.

And then I got this weird text message that was totally blank.

It said from "unknown" and the body said "message not found"

It tripped me out but I thought - aw…. it's probably just a weird phone glitch.

Then a few weeks later I was at the doctor's office and thinking of him and suddenly I got another one just the same and I LOST MY SHIT.

I was convinced that he was reaching out to me… that he hadn't let go of this world and hadn't crossed over and he was trying to reach me.

And then finally I decided that if anyone wasn't letting go it was me.

Nevertheless - I got these texts from nobody in the ether space and they are trippy and shook me up.

I also keep seeing snails in the sky - corroborated by my sister and my boyfriend… so I know that they are there in broad daylight… painted across the sky.

Our symbol… the snail.

We were always telling each other to look for snails in the clouds as messages from one another.

It was our way of reminding one another to be our own unique selves - wonderful and weird and authentically us.

SNAIL LIFE

He is somewhere now.  I know he is.  He's infinite.... somewhere.

I like to imagine that he's in the sky… 

Everywhere.

Dear Birdie,

I feel you in every ray of sun.

After the most painful night of grief I’ve ever felt, the sun still came up the next morning.

It peeked up over a building behind me as I was walking and wrapped it’s arms around my shoulders and neck.

“You always bring the sunshine, Zan.” You’ve said that to me many times, and wrote it on a birthday card I still have from you.

When I got the news that you died, I felt like this endless, deep, dark hole was pulling me down and I wasn’t ever gonna get up.  I tried to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes I saw you… frantic, in dark water in the night, trapped under a boat.  The hard bottom of the boat above you in every direction. A drunken, disoriented mind trying to hold your breath longer and longer, until you couldn’t hold it any longer.

That’s when I flip out and start bawling.

Right now.

Love is reflected in love. You were MY sunshine.  You broke through the darkness during times when I was sad and brought me laughter and that smirky smile where your eyeballs disappear and your eyes just turn into upside down crescent moon slits, the big, goofy smile… the many smiles that made up your arsenal of disarming lovable expressions.

You used to call me in the middle of the night. (Somehow when you were drunk, time lost it’s meaning and time zones didn’t matter.)  Countless times I woke up at 2 or 3am to a Skype call from you - having a beer and watching the sun go down.  We loved to share sunsets.

YOU brought the sunshine, Birdie.  You just saw it reflected in me.

So where are you now?  You’re infinite now. I know that.  The intangible feelings, thoughts, love, joy, dreams… the things that made you you… they are somewhere. Maybe redistributed into the atmosphere. Maybe swirling together as potential energy in the ocean, ready to convert to kinetic energy as a wave and barrel the friends and family who love you and miss you, and need to be surrounded by you.  You have no body left to snuggle us with, so maybe you are just in the waves, in the sun… The energies in nature that surround us and hold us and embrace us. Maybe that’s where you are.

When people die, they are glorified and it pisses me off. Everyone has to qualify how close they were to the deceased and talk about what a legend they were and how awesome they were. Nobody ever says, “Ya. but he was kind of a douchebag. I remember when he did all these bad things. I kind of hated him.”  I always wish that people would talk truth about people when they died.

The thing is… with you… my sweet Birdie…

There isn’t anything bad to say.  The truth is exactly what hundreds of people are spreading across social media…

You were their sunshine.

You were such a good man.

Albiet kind of selfish sometimes - i mean, you fucking buried our pet bird without me. You didn’t even let me get out all my hippy sage, and magical stones, and tibetan singing bowl to do a proper ceremony.

But aside from that - you truly were a fucking legend. You were.

I loved you so much.

In the last three years I went through so many short lived stupid relationships with dudes that you were always there to lend some advice about. Usually always to get rid of him and move on to someone who appreciated me… and then I found him.  We were supposed to go to Burning man next year. WTF? How can I ever go to that festival again, without you?

Every time i questioned my path, you brought me back. Reminded me that I had to be a doctor so I could support you when you were older.

WTF?

I just can’t take it.

I can’t fucking believe you’re gone.

I”m borderline mad at you right now. And I know that’s crazy.  Is anger one of the stages of grief?

Here’s been my stages: 1. Hysteria 2. Hysteria 3. Choking, sick, profusely sweating, fevering, hysteria 4. Full blown denial. (I actually went through a whole delusion where you were making this shit up. playing the dickest practical joke ever) 5. Xanax coma for about 24 hours. 6. Now I’m out of bed and kind of pissed.  You had SO much more to give the world.

SO much.

How could you do this?

You were NOT a lifer out there. We talked about it all the time.

ALWAYS talking about wanting to get home and settle down, but then also have freedom to travel.  You weren’t supposed to die at 31 in the water.

In that water that you and I swam in a hundred times. The water you threw me in to see the phosphorescence.  The water we tried to swim across the channel, hammered at 4am and then I swam over a sea urchin and flopped myself into a canoe of a local fisherman and smashed his eskie. (we'll leave out the rest of that story)... the same water.  THAT was your deathbed? No. No fucking way.

Shit. I’m headed back to 7. Hysteria.

Everything hurts. I ache for you.  I ache for your sweet mom and dad who let me use their washing machine in Aus and dye everything I had pink.  I ache for your gorgeous sister who I never got to meet but knew so much about. I ache for your adorable, hilarious, hospitable Crescent Head besties who put me up and showed me the greatest time ever.

I ache for John and Ainz and Joey and Tom and Sas and the rest of the Mentawai family who cherished you and loved you and honored you and adored you. They brought us together.  I can't imagine what my life would look like without you... and now I have to.

I ache for my own heart and this emptiness inside of it right now.

I’m gonna go sit in the sunshine to try and feel you.

I love you forever.

RIP Adam Dube

July 4, 1984 - Sept 1, 2015

Whistler while you work... (and reflect and reflect and reflect as always... in all ways)

I blinked open my eyes after savasana meditation and started giving cues to wiggle fingers and toes. 

Teaching yoga is so second nature to me still, even after years of being away from it.

We finished class and sat surrounded by 360º windows looking out at the gorgeous Blackcomb mountain, Whistler mountain, and trees for as far as the eye could see in literally every direction.  We hung around in that yoga room of my dreams and talked about the difference between living in the heart and living in the head.

The first time I heard to Dalai Lama speak was in Los Angeles, before I found him again in India and spent three days at his temple hearing talks and ultimately taking refuge with him surrounded by Bhutanese monks and my surf Buddha friend who's island I had been living on.

The LA experience was... well... very LA. Cheryl Crow opened for him. No... really. She did.

It was unexpected and actually pretty perfect. She just sat on a stool and sang a song I'd never heard that went, "if we could only get out of our heads... out of our heads... and into our hearts...."

I'm reflecting on that this morning laying in bed looking out the window at the gorgeous heavy fog gobbling up the tree line as skiers fly towards me on carpets of snow that seem to lead to my window...  Because (as I discussed at length yesterday after teaching yoga) I have made a transition backwards... I have moved from a place where I lived in my heart at all times up into my brain. This has been a conscious transition for me.  I have moved away from the way I was raised... to intuit and to feel all things at all times... and I have begun to question everything from an analytical, scientific perspective.  I have walked away from the yoga world and every time I find myself on my mat, a part of me sighs deeply and profoundly and I feel complete.

But then I blink my eyes open and I walk back to my chemistry book.

We  talked about this physician who had just done a study putting Buddhist monks through an MRI machine while they are meditating. I love this idea of bridging the gap between heart and mind...

Although I need to spend some time in my head before I can make it back to my heart.

I wrote an article for my friend's blog - http://365til30.com/2015/02/19/project-30-zan/... It was about reflecting on my twenties from my thirties...

Wow. I am in my thirties. This is weird. Life is moving so fast.

And so I take a long breath and look out at where I am. Here. In this moment.

I just talked to my best friend Cary about saying fuck it to "forever" because it's a fallacy.

Step out of the forever fallacy... Forget about the future and just be here now.

Zoom out. 

Look at right now and smile.

When I flew up here on Tuesday evening, Kiran - the 14 yr old I was escorting on the trip up here, was shocked to hear that I had never been to Canada. You mean I been all over the world multiple times to countless countries and yet never went to visit our next door neighbor?  It is a tad ridiculous.

Especially because it's gorgeous here. So docile, mellow, polite and aesthetically beautiful.

The last two days I have been skiing for the first time (although I have snowboarded for most of my life)... Skiing is new. And here I am in utter paradise.  On one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Staying in the penthouse of La Chamois - this gorgeous hotel/condo where I can see straight out to the mountains and watch skiers fly down the mountain towards me.

I am surrounded by trees, oxygen, life, family, laughter, babies, love and kindness.

I am so lucky to be here.

Fuck the forever fallacy.

Be here now.

Canada is killing it for me right now.

I will be back.

Thank you Roatan

 I'm sitting on my deck in the most perfectly rainy morning looking out over the ocean I've come to know over the last five weeks. I know where the reef changes and where the shades of turquoise shift and the direction the tide pulls...

And this is my favorite incarnation of this ocean view I've called mine since I've lived here...

This one where the horizon melts into the sky and it's just some kind of grayish blue dome that sweeps up and back over me. The turquoise strips of water and pounded down by fat, tropical raindrops and somehow the color disappears below the surface.

I love the sounds on mornings like this.

Temporarily the chirps and Squeeks of the jungle pause as though everything alive has unhinged its jaw and turned its face upwards to drink in the baptism from the sky.

The various roofs from nearby houses echo at different pitches - the corrugated tin rooftops are my favorite.

Water lands on the palm fronds encircling my house and then pour down like a natural gutter system - a waterfall of rainwater spilling onto the dirt and sand earth.

It's my second to last day here on Roatan. Day 32. I just walked back from the school where I tutor the kids in English twice a week and made it home just before the skies opened up.

I've loved working with the kids.

We sit in a little nook filled with donated text books and work on worksheets for reading and writing.

They are such sweet little kids.

This afternoon I'll have my second to last day at the clinic! In all honesty, I am not sad to leave Roatan- but I am a little sad about leaving the clinic.

It's been such a remarkable opportunity to experience GP clinic work in an underserved community and be given such autonomy and trust by the doctors!

I really feel as though this has made me want to go into family medicine.

I love the variety of patients and conditions... The constant puzzle to figure out what the problem is and then sort out a treatment plan.

And I love taking time to chat and talk to the patients about their condition and lifestyle and habits... I love new people, so I think it's a good environment for me!

We had a little girl yesterday who came in with respiratory distress during a serious asthma attack. We had to give her hydrocortisone IV and she was nebulized for hours. She was such a brave, sweet little girl who watched the needles go into her arm and didn't flinch or cry but just toughed it out.

I sat with her and held her hand a little and let her listen to my heart with the stethoscope...

When I went to give her mom the medications and discharge them the little girl wrapped her arms around me and gave me the longest, tightest hug and then kissed me on the cheek.

My heart melted in that moment.

I love this work.

But I am ready to go home.

I told Carlos the other night on FaceTime how I had surprised myself by how much I missed him and how homesick I was.

Usually when I travel I am just so in the moment and in love with the Now, that I forget to be homesick... 

And yet on this trip- for as wonderful and fulfilling as it's been... I was never fully here.

I was always- in every minute- back home with my dogs and my family and Carlos.

I don't know if I'll ever come back here.

Something tells me I won't.

But then, when has my life ever been predicted or predictable.

If I do come back I would live on the West End- in a place like where Dr Diane was living across from Sundowners... The place I stayed on New Year's Eve... And I would work in the mornings so I could dive and or practice yoga in the afternoons/evenings at Earth Mamas

(I'm writing this here as a note to myself so I can remember if I ever look back here)...

So- I guess this is my last post from this adventure.

Thank you Roatan.

Yoga: something old, something new

The cicadas all started at once - their seemingly orchestrated stringed instrument bodies creating a crescendo of sound that gradually drowned out the squeaks and chirps of the jungle and the nearby crashing of waves on the beach.

The wind was blowing through the palm trees that surrounded our woven grass roof and rain was falling intermittently- scattering across the folds of the yoga hut and sneaking through little gaps to sprinkle us gently like a baptism.

Four red lanterns hung in the corner of the hut casting a meditative glow across the hardwood floors. The candles and incense flickered in the wind.

I closed my eyes with back flat on the earth, palms open to the ceiling, body drained, worked, and cathartically  cleansed and let my breath guide me into a deep savasana meditation.

This was my first yoga class on Roatan the night before last... My first yoga class of 2015... And in all honesty, my first yoga class in a LONG time that I was fully in.

Yoga has taken a turn for me in the last few years and has been a process of undoing... Of unfolding... And basically devolving for me.

I am rarely drawn to practice and when I do it is a chore for me instead of a place of peace and union, like it used to be.

I found myself in this class instinctively kicking up into pincha mayurasana from dolphin pose only to hear my deeper self say "maybe not today. Stick with dolphin." From camel pose I lifted up to drop back into my familiar kapotasana only to hear that voice laugh a little and say "I'm not sure we do that any more."

All these old poses that were the "next level" I had evolved into and become... They were no longer available to my body because I'd been off my mat for so long and my muscles were unprepared for them.

And in this class, tucked back off the main road in the warm island night air... I didn't really mind that this was where I was- because for the first time in a very long time I was actually enjoying my practice and not fighting through it to prove to myself that I still could... It wasn't merely a competition with myself - a physical exercise I was going through the motions doing... It was actually something  that it used to be for me long ago before I forgot how to feel this... It was a moving mediation and a little sacred space where I could let myself lay down and just be.

I walked down the road to the Sundowners bar and ordered a glass of shitty red wine and looked out at the rain dripping off the palm trees and wondered if it had something to do with the fact that I was back in the real tropics... The climate where my body feels it's best.

In San Diego I practice at a studio called "Yoga Tropics" which is ironic because I have a strong aversion to going to class there. Although I do like it and as a seasoned yogi and certified yoga instructor I can appreciate that it's a good class... It's just not something that pulls me or draws me in.  But here in the real tropics, I am left dreaming of returning to that beautiful evening class bathed in the red light.

Unfortunately I am working in the afternoon/evening this week at the clinic so I can't make it back to the class again, but maybe that's for the best. I love to hold that image in my head in its perfection instead of going back and finding flaws or having it be not as beautiful as I imagine it to be now.

I have 9 more days on this island.

I absolutely love the work here. The clinic is a truly phenomenal operation that I am so grateful to be a part of- especially after spending last week working in the hospital... What a dichotomy.

This is the hospital:

This is the clinic:

Maybe a photo doesn't do it justice.

The hospital is scary and uncomfortable- broken and rotting.

The clinic is a beautiful haven of health for the people who are willing to wait and come to see a slew of amazing people who are here to volunteer their services and help. A full pharmacy, a lab, pediatrics, OBGYN and a loving environment.

Although I really love the work here,  I am aching to get home and see my family, Carlos and my doggies. I think I knew I would be homesick when I was leaving SD last month.

Something inside of my is shifting.

I know... I know that everything inside all of us is ALWAYS shifting- but since Monday (Jan 5th) I really feel something shaking free that's been hanging there blocking something else for a long time.

I can't explain what it is...

And honestly- my mind always skips to malaria- and the time I spent after my infection that left me in a haze and feeling lost, isolated inside myself and a stranger in my skin all at once.

My vipassana a year and a half ago broke through something bigger and maybe this is a residual chunk of something else- an emotional blockage- or else just something I can't define or understand.

Nevertheless I feel clearer and fuller. More whole since that hour and a half spent on my yoga mat- and I want to remember this- carry this with me into 2015.

I didn't set any resolutions of NYE. I didn't even do my ceremony where I draw a circle on a piece of paper and write inside the circle what I want to manifest for myself and outside the circle I'm ready to release for the year...

So here I am on Jan 7th- back at my favorite coffee shop I walked 1.6 miles up a winding road to get to...

And I'm setting my intentions:

I intend to exercise every day because it makes my body, mind and soul feel right.

Even if it's just some squats and climbers and crunches in my bedroom in the morning... Or else running on the beach... Or taking a long walk... Or swimming with dad... Or taking a dance class or spinning class. I need to do something every day of this year.

I intend to practice yoga. 

(Note: this is not a part of the exercise intention because that's not what this is... I intend to PRACTICE YOGA- something that is different to what I've been doing the last few years. It's something I used to do and I know what i'm talking about)

I intend to maintain my 4.0 GPA and get clear about my path forward towards medical school or else PA school.

That's all. Exercise/yoga/academics.

Everything else in my life right now is really good and just how I want it.

I love my job, I love my living situation, and I love having such a sweet man in my life who loves me back and treats me so well.

Here's to 2015

Abre su corazón

Life in Honduras... I'm nearly halfway done with my stint here... It's been a beautiful mix of clinic work, scuba diving, walking through jungle roads, soaking in the tropical sun, and playing at night with travelers who have wandered their way to this same island in this same moment and find themselves ordering the same dollar rum drinks in paper cups under bamboo roofs.

I used to love people much more than I do now. I can remember a time when I'd be sitting in this cafe that I just walked for 35 minutes up a winding, crumbling road to get to, and I'd be looking around at the people here falling In love with them and thinking how wonderful they all are... But somehow I've become more cynical. I see myself mirrored in the obnoxious girl who can't sit still, pointing out locations on a map and declaring proudly which countries she's "done"- as though she graced it with her presence, ticked it off a list, crumpled and threw it away when she was done with it.

I remember when my fixation with traveling began and I was convinced that it was absolutely necessary that I went everywhere and saw everything.

It was a juvenile, wide eyed, somewhat ignorant way to live and travel.

I feel the same way about "traveling" and "travelers"... Being those folks with the the backpacks with patches from all the countries they've seen and ticked off some kind of list... I feel the same way as I do about yoga and yogis these days.

I was so obsessed with yoga... Believed that I was one of the chosen ones who was progressing down a secret, occult path. I was in touch with something that others couldn't touch. Mastering poses and balancing while my muscles shook meant that I was a true yogi.

Now I see "yogis" walking around proudly rocking their tank tops with decidedly spiritual symbology and namaste-ing at everything and I roll my eyes.

Something makes me look at these young yogis and travelers and think "they're missing the point"... But that's not fair.

We all walk down our paths at different speeds and see the world through different lenses that we swap and switch out constantly.

Just because I've retired a certain lens doesn't mean I need to reject it and balk at it.  I need to heck myself and not be so judgey.

San Diego has really changed me.

I think this is symptomatic of more than one thing happening in my life- I am in school which is gradually pulling me closer and closer to science and further from the mystical. Just calling something a "mystery" is no longer an acceptable answer. I have no interest in filling God in the gaps.

Descartes copped out if you ask me.

I want proof, scientific method, reasoning, and explanations.

Another thing pulling me further from that open heartedness I used to prance across the planet with is I think due to the people of San Diego.

I have had such a difficult time over the last two years accepting San Diegans as "my people." 

Simply, they aren't.

I find myself constantly disappointed by the energy and mindset of the people my age who chose to live in San Diego.

Until I met my Carlos, I was totally disillusioned by the population in SD besides my parents and the Singh/Rhodes family who I work for and feel like they are my family anyway.

Otherwise I have met almost no-one who I feel a soul connection to which has made me cynical and pessimistic.

My heart is very open with the kids, my family and my boyfriend- but otherwise I walk around rather closed up.

I read a quote this morning and loved it. It reminded me how I feel now- after spending a day in the sunshine with the volunteers here who are absolutely my PEOPLE! 

"When the heart opens, we forget ourselves and the world pours in: this world and also the invisible world of meaning that sustains everything that was and ever shall be. When the heart opens, everything matters, and this world and the next become one and the same."

I hope I can remind myself of this often.