breath is so much more important

inhale. exhale. since i started practicing yoga i've learned (or maybe just relearned) that breathing is everything.

lately i've been battling a cold. a lot of congestion built up right in the most important place...

we breathe so that our organs and vital systems can function, so that we can live. we breathe to maintain necessary homeostatic rhythms, so that our heart can beat. we breathe differently in satisfaction than disappointment, in pleasure than in deep sorrow. we breathe, always, even if we try not to. it seems like life is simply tenacious enough to keep breathing...

currently i am in training to become a better breather, in hopes that all that smooth flowing delicious enriching oxygen will permeate my entire being and help me to be, better.


mmm

lemons in life

making limoncello is much more difficult than i would have imagined. lemon juice is too sour, you see, for the type of sweet, soft , sensual delight that is limoncello. its a crazy infusion of lemon rind soaked in vodka and mixed with a gentle sweet syrup, served cold with a burst of bright yellow zesty refreshment. i was convinced i could make it in an hour. turns out 10-14 days is the minimum you need to get the proper consistency and potency. hmmm

so i'm finding the same principles resonate throughout my life. like good friendships. you can't simply squeeze all that juice out and mix it with a bunch of other stuff and expect it to taste good or be long lasting at all. you have to let things soak, you have to slowly add the sugar, the substance, the color slowly slowly begins to glow....

just thinking about all the lemons i have. some of them are still on trees, waiting to fall off from the weight of their ripeness. some are getting a little soft sitting in my kitchen waiting to be used, squeezed, peeled. some are at that perfect plumpity, simply waiting to be rolled around and made into the best, most delicious lemonade or dressing you'll ever taste...

the music leads us

the sounds and images and words you surround yourself with will, without fail, infect every part of you. lately i've had a cd stuck in my car that over the last 2 weeks has played nonstop, echoing sweet songs of true, raw worship. today my ipod repeated this song at least 5 times, filling me with a warmth and joy uncontainable...reminding me of who it is who knows me so well, who loves me so well, who feeds me and leads me....

"my heart beats today with a faster pace than blood can flow, with a fever my veins can't hold
oh hosanna, hosanna

my mind circles today with thoughts much to big to think, pictures and colors to bright to keep this old piece of clay that you've shaped for so many years, is about to burst as you're drawing near

hosanna, hosanna

come close my king who bears all my sorrows, who's crushed for me, who hears my praise, come close my king by your wounds i am saved.

hosanna, hosanna"

---on the uphill---

nothing like a rainy day

there's a river of thoughts rushing through my head lately...especially today. it was one of those days that i woke up and everything was somehow off...my body was sick, my mind was running, my spirit was dry, my energy was very inward, closed.

and somehow in the midst of the puzzles and traps i can conjure for myself in my brain, whether i'm fussing about my schedule and how much reading i'm NOT going to get done before class or if i'm focusing on the deep longing in my heart to create art, music, poetry that will in some beautiful manner make tangible or bring to life my swirling emotions and yet not even being able to even comprehend or organize what those emotions are...somehow i make it through the day. somehow i make the time to sit and pray, to nourish my body slowly and thankfully, somehow it works out that i understand what i was supposed to understand for class and still have time to have meaningful conversations and fellowship with close friends...

i'm not sure how all these concepts, musings, questions or thoughts will take shape or when or even if they will at all...but i do know that the afternoon promised rain, and rain it did deliver. rain in the most cleansing, dimension increasing, rich, soothing, loosening and freeing way. i went for a walk, allowing the wetness to soak through the cold skin on my feet, let it drip of the tip of my warm lips, let it drench me in whatever magical, divine, blissful elixer it could... somehow the day ended up being pretty 'on'...

there's nothing like a rainy day to do me good, to bring clarity to all this haze...

till the next storm...b

glimpses of me: an entirely random amalgamation of thoughts

i have perpetually cold extremities. therefore i love hot tea and moving my body to keep from being cold. i'm in the process of determining whether or not this is the result of anemia or simply all my energy and blood is swirling around in my heart and my mind lately and there has been little excess warmth to spread to those less 'significant' body parts.

i have recently become entirely too obsessed with almonds. pure unadulterated and chunky almond butter makes my mouth water even at sight of the jar. raw, non pasturized almonds, maybe mixed with a few cranberries or a bite of a perfect green apple. roasted almonds. sliced almonds, perhaps sprinkled over a salad or a fresh batch of cookies. almond based trail mix. almond milk. almond scented candles and body lotion.

i realize that there has been lately a constant stream of dreams, questions, dizzying emotions and thoughts running about my mind, buzzing up and down my spine, swirling in the very deepest of soul-corners. many of these thoughts have no particular logical coordination nor do they emphasize the need for outward expression, but i find that a good bunch of them are hardly coincidental, given the fact that i'm 21, graduating collge in 14 weeks, yearning to do good in the world and love God. in the grand scheme of life, all of these are good things, beautiful things, perfect things. in the more intimate reality of my self and my life often i find myself internally shouting at the top of my lungs trying to find some direction, trying to make sense of things and produce a creative outpouring of expression that could adequately purvey these thoughts... more and more it becomes an even bigger project, a perpetual and exponential game which i cannot escape. and yet even descartes claimed that to stop thinking is to stop existing...

i am unbelievably blessed and take my state of being for granted nearly every day. i know the god of the universe who loves me. he makes it clear every day with every gorgeous bit of nature, every soft tug on my heart. i have amazing friends, family and support. i am healthy, i have a home to call my own, i am a student, i have the awareness that the universe is all too grand for me to comprehend and that my small perspective on life is so limited, even if i presume the most open mind, but i am so willing to learn, to change, to love, to make decisions and to take action. i have clean underwear to wear everyday and access to really anything i could need.

i am me. just as i am in this very moment. i like who i am. i love where i've been and i'm excited for where im going, confident that the Lord will use me and bless me wherever that ends up being or wtith whomever or pursuing whatever.

desert camping part one

there's a certain sense of hopelessness in the midst of the debilitating despair that so often people get trapped in. the sense that life somehow cannot go on, that all the pain and pressure and hurt and heaving of the earth, of humanity, is too great to endure...

and yet in the most brutal landscape, the desert, in the very thick of what seems desolate, dry, void of life...
it happens. life sprouts up all around us. plants will find their way to the endure through the scorching heat. creatures will find their nourishment. water will somehow seep into the small cracks of earth giving energy to every atom, every seed, every thirsty tree.

life is tenacious. in the desert, the plants and creatures, and people even, will survive. there is a will to survive. and if you look close enough, its not actually that desolate. there is a rugged beauty that exudes from the miles of open space, light and dark colorful hues that compose the soil, extreme dichotomies of sky and earth, peak and valley, shape and emptiness.

i think i'll spend more time in the desert. there's so much exploring to be done, so many campfires to enjoy, silly amalgamations of raw food to consume, so many starry skies to captivate me by...

life in hillcrest

the new year passed for me in Colorado amongst close friends and family, with snow and champagne cascading down all around me...a somewhat quiet semblance of gold and grenadine that cast out 2008 and showered in the promises and hopes of 2009...

moving off point loma's campus could have been one of the best decision's i've made this year,
keeping in mind that only 8 days have passed this year, this is a largely relative statement.
i've moved to a little neighborhood called Hillcrest, where the restaurants, small businesses,
dog walkers, farmers market's and social butterflies are thriving.

i live with my best friend Megg and two other lovely ladies. We have a great house, lots of roome to dance and cook and play and write music and be comfortable, be hospitable, be the true windblown, earthy, creative gypsies we are.

Life here, especially this last week not having school or any big obligations besides my yoga and various lunch appointments with friends and little birds, is simple. i walk to the gym. i walk to the grocery store. the post office is just up the street, right next to the fresh flower guy, just across from my favorite thai restaurant, which is just a stone's throw away from balboa park where i can go play frisbee, run, take a nap, visit a museum, paint, get lost in the gardens or make friends with the elder members of the grass bowling club.

you see, hillcrest is so unique. besides the overly obvious and flaunted homosexual population here, the hillcrest neighborhood is funky. the streets are funky and full of flare. the houses are funky, old but contemporary. the people are funky, so many perosonalities, so many stories, so many different vibes being cast around during the day as you waltz down the street.

i suppose i fit pretty well here, keeping in mind my own funky, awkward, delicate, curious nature and lifestyle. i'm have high hopes for this place, the space Megg and I have created in our home, the adventures and people i will meet here, the challenges of living independently, the beauty of being in a 'real' neighborhood and the consistent pursuit of living out my desire to be Christlike, a good steward of God's love and provision... to love others and take responsibility for those around me, for myself, for my earth...

so here's a few blinks of life in hillcrest for you to try and piece together and stay on the journey with me... cheers to the new year